Napoleon felt his ankle give way, and stumbled to the side, thrusting out his arms to break his fall as he went down.
‘Sire!’ Lannes hurried to kneel at his side. ‘You’ve been hit?’
The pain in Napoleon’s leg was agonisingly sharp and he gritted his teeth as he replied. ‘Of course I’ve been hit, you fool.’
‘Where?’ Lannes glanced over him anxiously. ‘I can’t see the wound.’
‘My right leg.’ Napoleon winced. ‘The ankle.’
Lannes shuffled down and saw that Napoleon’s boot had been badly scuffed. He felt tenderly for signs of injury. Napoleon gasped and forced himself to sit up. Over Lannes’s shoulder he could see several staff officers and orderlies running towards them. Beyond, the men of the nearest battalion were falling out of line as they stared towards their Emperor with shocked expressions.
‘The Emperor is wounded!’ a voice cried out.
The cry was repeated and a chorus of despairing groans rippled through the ranks of the division forming to launch the second attack. Napoleon could see that he must act swiftly to restore the men’s morale, before the chance to seize Ratisbon slipped away.
‘Get me on my feet,’ he muttered to Lannes.
The marshal shook his head. ‘You are injured, sire. I’ll have you carried to safety and send for your physician.’
‘You’ll do no such thing,’ Napoleon snapped. ‘Get me up. Bring me my horse.’
‘As you command.’
The marshal was a powerfully built man and he grasped his Emperor’s arm and raised him up easily. Napoleon stood with all his weight on his left foot and fought to hide any sign of the shooting pain that made an agony of any movement of his right leg. He rested his hand on Lannes’s shoulder as the latter called for his horse. While one of the Emperor’s bodyguard held the reins Lannes carefully lifted Napoleon up into the saddle and placed his right foot into its stirrup. Napoleon took the reins and breathed in deeply.
‘Your orders, sire?’ Lannes looked up at him.
‘Continue the attack, until Ratisbon is taken.’ Napoleon clicked his tongue and touched his heels in as tenderly as he could, wincing at the fiery stab in his right ankle as he did so. The horse walked forward and Napoleon steered it along the front of the regiments forming up for another attack on the enemy defences. Berthier trotted up and drew alongside.
‘Do you wish me to have your carriage brought forward?’
‘No. I will stay on my horse. Where the men can see me.’ Napoleon held up his hand to greet the nearest battalion, and a cheer rose up, loud and prolonged. It was taken up by the next formation and continued down the line of Morand’s division. Napoleon continued riding along the front rank, forcing himself to smile at his men, and exchanging greetings with their commanders as he passed by.
He reached the far end and turned to make his way back. Marshal Lannes had remounted his horse and trotted it forward so that he stood in full view of his soldiers. Napoleon reined in alongside, and forced himself to keep his expression impassive as another cannon ball grounded a short distance from the division’s band, took the head off a young drummer boy and smashed through the chest of the one behind.
Lannes took off his plumed hat and raised it high as he filled his lungs and bellowed, ‘Volunteers for the ladder party step forward!’
His voice resonated briefly in the warm air, then died away, but not a man moved. Those in the front rank stared ahead, refusing to meet the gaze of their marshal or their Emperor. Those who volunteered to carry the ladders would be advancing right behind the skirmishers and the enemy would be sure to concentrate their fire on such easy targets. The ground in front of the Austrian defences was already littered with the dead and wounded of the previous attack and the memory of the storm of fire from the walls was still fresh in the minds of the survivors.
Lannes stared at the silent, still ranks with a surprised look on his face, which swiftly turned to scorn. ‘Is there no man amongst you willing to have the honour of being the first to scale the walls? Well?’
No one moved and Napoleon was aware of a terrible tension building between the marshal and his men. If it was not resolved, and quickly, there would be no second attack. Lannes must have shared the realisation, for he glanced anxiously at his Emperor and then suddenly dismounted and strode towards the nearest of the ladders. As the soldiers looked on, Lannes picked it up and adjusted his position so that he could carry it by himself. He turned towards the men and called out contemptuously, ‘If no man here has the stomach for it, then I’ll do it alone. Before I was a marshal I was a grenadier - and I am still!’
With that, he turned away and began to march towards Ratisbon, the unwieldy ladder held in a firm grip.
‘Good God,’ Berthier muttered. ‘What on earth does he think he’s doing?’
Napoleon could not help smiling. ‘What else? His duty.’
For a moment no man stirred, then one of Lannes’s staff officers ran forward and stood in his commander’s path.
‘Sir! You can’t do this. Who will command the corps if you are killed?’
‘What do I care?’ Lannes growled. ‘Out of my way, damn you.’
He brushed the officer aside and continued towards the waiting Austrians. The other man stared after him, aghast. Then, recovering his wits, he hurried to catch up, took hold of the end of the ladder and fell into step with Lannes.
‘Wait, sir!’ one of the other staff officers called out as he and his companions ran forward, snatched up the nearest ladders and hurried after Lannes.
There was a brief pause before the colonel of the nearest battalion turned to his astonished men and bellowed, ‘What are you waiting for? I’ll be damned if I let a marshal of France take a bullet that’s meant for me! Advance!’ He drew his sword and swept it towards the town. ‘Long live France!’
The cry was taken up by his men and they lurched into movement, running down to pick up the ladders and surging after Lannes and his officers. In an uneven tide of cheering soldiers the rest of Morand’s division swept forward, snatching up the remaining ladders as they went. Napoleon felt his blood quicken at the sight and he urged his horse to advance with the rest of the men. The defenders reacted swiftly to the new threat and every gun that could be brought to bear opened fire on the wave of men rushing across the open ground towards the ditch and the wall beyond. A roundshot briefly droned close overhead and Berthier instinctively ducked his head.
‘Sire, is this wise? You’ve already been wounded. I implore you to have your leg attended to.’
‘Later. All that matters now is taking Ratisbon.’
‘With respect, sire, Marshal Lannes can handle the attack.’
‘Really?’ Napoleon glanced at his chief of staff. ‘You saw the men. You saw how fickle their mood is. If their Emperor is with them, they will not lose heart.’
Berthier bowed his head wearily. ‘I am sure you are right, sire. But what if you are killed? Right here, before the men? Not only would the attack fail but it would be a blow to the morale of the whole army.’
Napoleon forced himself to smile.‘My dear Berthier, I can assure you that the bullet that will kill me has not yet been cast. Now, enough of this. We remain with our soldiers.’
‘Yes, sire,’ Berthier replied meekly and did his best to look unperturbed as they rode on.
Ahead of them, Napoleon could make out the gold-laced uniforms of Lannes and his officers, still leading the attack as they hurried forward. They reached the ditch, half running, half slithering down the near slope before they ran at the far side and scrambled up to cross the last stretch of open ground before the wall. Above them the battlements were lined with Austrian soldiers, firing and reloading their muskets as quickly as possible as the tide of blue uniforms surged towards them. On either flank of Morand’s division, the cannon in the enemy redoubts blasted case shot into the French ranks, sweeping several men away at a time in bloody tatters. Napoleon and Berthier reined in a short distance from
the ditch and watched as Lannes and his officers reached the wall. They hurriedly raised the ladder and the marshal sprang on to the lowest rungs and started to climb. On either side other ladders were thrust against the wall and the men of Morand’s division streamed up, clambering over the breastworks and falling on the defenders.
Most had fired their muskets as they closed on the wall, and now went in with the cold steel of the bayonet, or used their weapons like clubs as they fought at brutal close quarters with the Austrians. The same fate befell the defenders of the flanking redoubts as the French fought their way in through the gun embrasures and fell on the enemy gunners within. After the death wreaked by their cannon, Napoleon knew that none of the artillery crews would be spared the vengeful wrath of the attackers.
As more men climbed over the walls there was a cheer from those still outside the town as the gates began to open. For an instant Napoleon tensed, wondering if the enemy were about to launch a counter-attack, but as the gates swung back a hatless figure in an elaborate gold-laced uniform emerged from within the town.
‘That’s Lannes!’ Berthier cried out.
‘Yes.’ Napoleon grinned in relief, and nudged his horse forward towards the ditch. As the horse cautiously stepped down the slope Napoleon saw for the first time the bodies heaped along the bottom of the ditch, some badly torn up by the heavy iron balls of case shot. The horse whinnied until Napoleon leaned forward to pat its flank soothingly and urge it up the far side. Lannes was waving his men through the gate and bellowing encouragement as Napoleon and Berthier rode up to him. Napoleon noted the tear in the marshal’s uniform jacket, and the smear of blood on his neck.
‘It seems that you are the reckless one now, my dear Jean.’
Lannes looked up, then touched a gloved hand to his neck. It came away with a smear of fresh blood. ‘A scratch, sire. Nothing more.’
Napoleon glanced back over the ditch and out across the approaches to the town. He estimated that nearly a thousand Frenchmen had fallen before the walls of Ratisbon. He turned back to Lannes. ‘It would seem that you lead something of a charmed life.’
‘As do we all, sire, until the day we die.’
They shared a laugh, and Berthier joined in a little uncertainly. Then Napoleon leaned forward to give his marshal fresh instructions.‘Pass the order for your men to clear the town. Meanwhile I want you, and every other grenadier that you can find, to make directly for the bridge. We must capture it intact. Stop for nothing, and having taken it, hold on at all costs. Clear?’
‘Yes, sire.’
‘Then go.’
As Lannes trotted back into the city and called his staff officers to him, Napoleon and Berthier remained by the gate and the Emperor acknowledged the greetings of the soldiers of the follow-up regiments of the division as they marched into Ratisbon. Many, particularly the young recruits, had only ever seen their Emperor from afar, if at all, and now regarded him with excited curiosity and not a little awe. Some of the older men, with campaign stripes on their sleeves, shouted out informal greetings to Napoleon in order to impress their younger comrades. Napoleon knew that they would be holding court over the camp fires that night, telling tales about the times they had fought at the side of the Emperor when he had still been a young officer.
He waited until the first two regiments had entered the town before following them through the gate. The sounds of fighting had receded towards the river and the faint crackle of musket shots was punctuated by the occasional dull boom of a cannon from the Austrian-held bank of the Danube. There were bodies strewn along the street leading from the gates, both French and Austrian. The dead and wounded had been hurriedly dragged aside so as not to hold up the troops marching through. The living sat propped up against the walls, waiting to be helped to the rear where their injuries would eventually be treated. Some raised a cheer as Napoleon rode by, others stared blankly, too shocked or in too much pain to care.
Ahead of them the street opened out into a square which the enemy had been using as a vehicle park. The space was lined with the ornately decorated facades that Napoleon had grown used to seeing in the small villages and towns on the banks of the Danube. Artillery limbers, ammunition caissons and supply wagons were packed tightly together in the middle of the square.
On the far side, Napoleon could see the broad route that led to the bridge that crossed the great river. A throng of blue-coated soldiers was pressing across the bridge. Napoleon spurred his horse forward. As he approached the end of the bridge he saw Lannes and his officers on a landing stage to one side. Beyond them the water of the Danube stretched out for over a hundred paces to the first of the small islands that lay between the two banks. The bridge, built on massive stone buttresses, extended right across the great river, passing over the islands to the far side. Napoleon could see that it was so solid that it could not easily be destroyed by gunpowder charges. Dense formations of enemy soldiers and several artillery batteries were clearly visible covering the far end of the bridge. Beyond them, on the slope rising up from the river, sprawled the camp of Archduke Charles’s army. Even as Napoleon watched, the French troops on the bridge began to give way under the vicious fusillade of musket balls and grapeshot sweeping the length of the bridge. The men fell back, the more resolute amongst them pausing to fire a last shot from cover before scurrying back to the shelter of the buildings lining the river.
At the sound of hooves approaching over the cobbled road, Lannes turned and he and his officers bowed their heads in greeting.
‘Make your report,’ Napoleon ordered as he reined in. The pain in his ankle had subsided into a steady throb and he had to force himself to pay full attention to the marshal.
‘The town is ours, sire. Most of the enemy managed to escape across the river, but we have a few hundred prisoners, and have taken twenty guns. A handful of the Austrians are still holding some buildings in the eastern quarter of Ratisbon, but they’ll be dealt with shortly. As for our losses—’
‘That’s not important now. Is the bridge safe?’
Lannes nodded. ‘Major Dubarry of the engineers has checked for charges. It seems the Austrians had no intention of trying to destroy the bridge.’
‘Good. Then we still have a chance to pursue Archduke Charles.’ Lannes raised his eyebrows momentarily. ‘Sire, as you can see, the enemy holds the far bank. We cannot force a crossing here. The enemy has escaped us, for the present.’
Napoleon pressed his lips together and fought to contain his temper. It had been over ten days since he had had a good night’s rest and in the sudden surge of anger he recognised the symptoms of exhaustion. Lannes was not to blame. As he stared across the river Napoleon could see for himself that any further attempts to cross the bridge would only lead to a bloody massacre. He felt a sudden heaviness in his heart as he contemplated the impasse. The Austrians had managed to put the Danube between them and their pursuers. If they moved parallel to the French army then they could block any attempt to cross the river and bring them to battle.
He sighed bitterly. ‘It seems that the enemy have learned their lesson from the last war. Archduke Charles will think twice before accepting a battle on my terms.’
‘We can find another crossing point, sire,’ Berthier replied. ‘Masséna is marching on Straubing. If he crosses the river before the Austrians stop him, then he can attack their flank.’
‘On his own?’ Napoleon shook his head. ‘Even if Masséna did manage to surprise the Austrians they can simply retreat into the German states to the north, and try to win over their allegiance while drawing us after them, and away from Vienna.’ He paused a moment and gently scratched the stubble on his chin. ‘No. We’ll not play Archduke Charles’s game. Instead, we must try to make him follow us.’
‘How, sire?’
‘We march on Vienna. I doubt the Austrians will be prepared to let us occupy their capital a second time.’
Lannes gestured to the enemy forces massed on the far bank. ‘And what if they c
ross back over and try to cut our communications?’
Napoleon smiled. ‘Then we turn on them and force them to fight. My guess is that they will not have the stomach to risk that for a while yet. So, we take the war to Vienna, my friends. Then we shall have our battle.’
Chapter 2
The Austrian army withdrew during the night and Napoleon sent Davout and his corps across the Danube to keep in contact with the enemy, and harass them. Meanwhile, the main army marched east, towards Vienna, pushing the remaining Austrian forces ahead of them. The spring weather remained fine and the soldiers of the French army tramped across the enemy’s lands in high spirits.
All the while Napoleon carefully scrutinised the regular intelligence reports sent to him by Davout. As soon as the threat to Vienna became clear Archduke Charles had turned his army round and set off along the north bank of the Danube in a bid to reach his capital city before the French. There was little chance of that, Napoleon calculated, since the Austrian army had always marched at a ponderous pace. The only news that concerned him came from Italy, where Archduke Charles’s brother, Archduke John, had bested the French army there. It was possible that John might march back towards Vienna in an attempt to combine the Austrian armies against Napoleon.
Early in May, the spires and roofs of the Austrian capital came within sight of the French army and Napoleon gave the order for the artillery to prepare to bombard Vienna. Before the guns could open fire the gates of the city opened and a small party of civilians rode out.
‘I wonder what they want?’ Berthier mused as he raised his telescope and watched them cautiously approach the French pickets. He turned to his Emperor. ‘Maybe they want to sue for peace already.’
‘I would hope so,’ Napoleon replied. ‘But if they intend to defend Vienna, then this time I will not hesitate to flatten the city. There will be no third chance for Emperor Francis to defy me.’ Napoleon gestured for the telescope and squinted through the eyepiece. There were five men in civilian clothes, together with a small mounted escort from the city’s militia.
The Fields of Death Page 2
