by Philip Dwyer
Napoleon’s decision to turn on his adversaries has been clouded in myth and is often referred to as the ‘Boulogne dictation’ (dictée de Boulogne). According to this legend, Napoleon dictated in one draft the plan of the forthcoming campaign to one of his councillors of state, Comte Pierre Antoine Daru. The exaggeration has been pointed out many times before,96 but it is worth underlining that Napoleon would have had to consult with many people – other generals, intendants and administrators – and would have had to think through numerous options, before deciding on the final draft, which is what the dictation appears to be. The main idea was simple: prevent the Russians from joining up with the Austrians in Germany. Moreover, although Napoleon had ordered his troops to gather on the Rhine, he did not decide on a plan of attack until the end of September, when he realized what the Austrian dispositions were likely to be.97 Underlying the simplicity of his objectives, however, was a complexity in operational planning that was to revolutionize warfare for the next century and more.98
The army, divided into seven corps or seven ‘torrents’ as Napoleon referred to them,99 set out on 29 August 1805. The time these men had spent in camp at Boulogne in part explains why he was so successful in the campaigns fought between 1805 and 1809.100 The army and its officers had been constantly exercised between 1803 and 1805 in every aspect of drill and tactics. This was a new army – only about 12 per cent of the troops were veterans of the revolutionary wars – that literally drilled seven days a week in their battalions or divisions, and held army corps manoeuvres twice a month when they practised live musket and cannon fire.101 Or at least most of them did. There are memoirs from this period that paint a less flattering portrait of the army in training and that describe it as far less disciplined than has been made out.102 Nevertheless, the training and discipline were drilled into most, so that they were superbly fit, which is why they were able to march from early morning till nightfall, covering about 390 kilometres, an average of fifty-five kilometres a day, in seven days.103
This is not to say that the forced marches did not take their toll. The march to the Rhine was fraught with difficulties, not the least being the precarious supply situation. Once again, the French believed that a combination of foraging and relying on supply depots would solve any provisioning problems. The only trouble was there were virtually no supply depots, despite orders being sent out to prepare them in advance.104 As a consequence of both the rapidity of the march and the lack of supplies, commanding officers had neither the time nor the means to feed their men, so the troops were authorized to pillage for food. Villages would be completely stripped bare.105 Bad weather and a constant lack of food meant that not only did the army go hungry but it was often in disarray.106 Although it is impossible to give any exact figures for the numbers of men who fell by the wayside, deserted or simply died of exhaustion, it seems that of the 210,000 men who started out from Boulogne, less than half were present at Austerlitz.107
But advance they did, and very quickly, on a 120-kilometre front between Stuttgart and Würzburg. This was in some respects a new way of waging warfare, the first time that Napoleon deployed the bulk of his troops at one central point with the objective of inflicting a knockout blow against the enemy.108 The Austrian commander, General Mack, made the decision to concentrate his scattered forces in a line from Ulm to Ingolstadt. Mack’s plans were possibly influenced by rumours that the British had landed at Boulogne and that Napoleon was retreating.109 He was convinced that Ulm was the key to any allied plan of attack and wrote to the Russian commander, Mikhail Kutuzov, whose vanguard had started to arrive in Braunau, some 250 kilometres further east, to join him to strike a blow against Napoleon. Kutuzov was wary, and thought that Mack would be better off getting out of Ulm to join him.110
‘Fighting England in Germany’
Kutuzov was right. Baron Karl Mack, ambitious but ill equipped for the operations he was about to face, was appointed quartermaster general of the army, largely at the insistence of the foreign minister, Count Franz Colloredo-Waldsee, in April 1805 when it was obvious that war with France was inevitable. Mack has borne the brunt of the blame for the failure at Ulm, but in some respects he was a scapegoat for the political failings of the Austrian monarchy. He was possibly singled out for this role not only for the defeat he endured but also because he was one of the very few commoners who had risen to achieve such a high rank – Feldmarschalleutnant, the equivalent of a major-general. Mack was by no means as stupid as some historians have made him out to be, and inspired the likes of Archduke Charles, who later almost defeated Napoleon at Wagram.
The Grande Armée arrived before Ulm on 15 October. It had taken seventeen days to march 210,000 men some 250 kilometres from the Rhine to the outskirts of Ulm.111 Mack was trapped inside the city with the bulk of his army. The next day, the town was bombarded. Mack refused to admit reality and persisted, for a while, in believing that the army before the walls of Ulm was nothing more than a feint. There is an eyewitness report that has the old man, ‘a night cap under his hat, wearing a blue coat, being supported under the arm by his valet, dragging his feet along the ramparts, assuring everyone that it was nothing more than a feint and that the enemy was in full retreat’.112 He ordered his officers not to speak of surrender – ‘triumph or die’ was the term he used113 – and seems, initially at least, to have been determined to resist, declaring that in the event of a prolonged siege he would be the first to eat horse flesh.114 It never came to that. Napoleon sent an emissary asking for Mack’s surrender, and even though he rejected Napoleon’s demand, the senior officers present in Ulm insisted that he save the army and accept.115 Mack restored some lost face by negotiating a somewhat unconventional arrangement: the Austrian army would be allowed to surrender with full military honours – on 25 October. If before that date a Russian relief force arrived, the Austrians would be expected to fight. If none were forthcoming, they would be taken prisoner. Napoleon, better informed about where the Russians were than the Austrians, allowed the delay in the knowledge that they were still several hundred kilometres away. In fact, Mack surrendered five days later when he realized the Russians would not arrive in time. Twenty-five thousand men filed into captivity past Napoleon – who happened to be suffering from a cold116 – bringing to 50,000 the number of Austrians who had been captured since the start of the campaign. Mack too went to prison with his men but was soon released. In Vienna, news of the capitulation left everyone ‘chop-fallen’, although it was hardly spoken about in public.117 Mack was later condemned to death by a court martial, but had his sentence commuted to two years in prison. He was released in 1808 and lived the rest of his life in obscurity.
In Paris, news of the capitulation of Ulm was announced before a performance of Racine’s Iphigénie on 24 October at the Comédie Française. When the actor playing Agamemnon uttered the following lines:
Mais qui peut dans sa course arrêter ce torrent?
Achille va combattre et triomphe en courant.
(But who can halt this torrent in its course?
Achilles leaps into the fray and triumphs as he runs.)
the audience burst into applause, expressing its support for Napoleon, the regime and his victory.118
Napoleon asked for an armistice after Ulm, but it was probably only to lull the allies into a false sense of security.119 He pushed ahead and by 24 October he was entering Munich. As with everywhere he now went, throngs of people flocked to catch a glimpse of the ‘man of destiny’, people illuminated their homes, church bells rang out and cannon roared in salute. The enthusiasm of the people of Munich for Napoleon appears to have been sincere.120 We have no idea what kind of impact this type of adulation, typical of his experience now in France but increasingly common also outside the Empire, was having on his psyche. He never mentions the impression it might have made on him in any of his letters or latterday reminiscences. It would be safe to assume, however, that no one can come away untouched by this sort of acclaim. Part of the cr
owd reaction stems from Napoleon’s posing as the protector of the smaller German states against Austrian territorial ambitions. The Elector of Bavaria, Max Joseph, was not there to greet him; he had fled to Würzburg at the beginning of September in the face of the Austrian advance.121 Described by contemporaries as a ‘big brewer of beer’, ‘a good, jolly, farmer-like looking fellow’, Max Joseph had hestitated before entering into an alliance with Napoleon, almost paralysed before the enormity of the decision he was facing.122 That Austria decided to invade Bavaria in a pre-emptive strike did not help. Faced with French pressure, Austrian arrogance and the ambition of his chief minister, Maximilian Montgelas, Max Joseph succumbed at the end of August and threw in his lot with Napoleon.
As a consequence of Ulm and the entry of the French into Munich, Francis decided to evacuate the Austrian capital. It would be the first time in 320 years that Vienna had been occupied by a foreign army. Napoleon tried on at least two occasions to persuade the Austrian Emperor to sign a separate peace with France, but Francis would have none of it.123
By 11 November, Murat, with the advance troops, was within sight of Vienna; he entered two days later. Napoleon, however, was furious with Murat (and possibly piqued) for getting sidetracked instead of vigorously pursuing the Russian army; he sent him a blistering letter.124 He realized from afar what Murat close up did not, namely, that he had diverted the army for no good reason. The glory of entering the imperial capital had blinded Murat to his real task, which was to pursue and destroy the Russian army. Thus he allowed the Russians to cross the Danube, unmolested, possibly in the mistaken belief that they were withdrawing completely from the campaign and heading home. In Murat’s defence, we should acknowledge that Napoleon had intimated to him when they were in Linz at the beginning of November that the seizure of Vienna would put him in a position to negotiate.125 If we take Murat’s logic into account, the decision to invest Vienna was the right one. By doing so, it was hoped the war would be brought to a speedy end. The reality, however, was that the failure to destroy the Russian army prolonged the war considerably.
Napoleon made his entry into Vienna on 14 November, and set up residence at the Schönbrunn Palace. Although Vienna had been threatened with occupation by Bonaparte during the first Italian campaign, this was the first major foreign capital to be occupied by the French since the beginning of the revolutionary wars, and it was therefore the object of some national pride.126 When news of the entry reached Paris on 26 November, whatever reservations the public may have had about going to war so shortly after the Empire had been founded were entirely dissipated.127 The joy was all the greater since it replaced a feeling of anxiety over the fate of Napoleon and the army, about which no news had been received since Ulm.128 The four most recent issues of the military bulletin sold so quickly that demand outstripped supply.129
Vienna, considered beautiful by most observers of the time, was an international capital of music, with a multi-ethnic population of more than 200,000, covered with unpaved roads that sometimes blew up clouds of dust, and surrounded by two rings of fortification in between which were trees and fields. Outside the city walls, however, the faubourg extended well beyond. One English tourist complained that there was no intellectual life, and that ‘vice, ignorance, and vanity stalk about the streets’.130 That was an exaggeration no doubt: even in the depths of winter, theatres and the opera were open every night, and in the summer there was the Prater, a large public park in which one could find ‘music, dancing . . . drinking and carousing, in almost every part’. There was no time for any of that, however. After a few days, Napoleon was on the road again, heading for Znaïm (today Znojmo in the Czech Republic), about ninety kilometres north-west of Vienna. On the way, he received a letter from Admiral Decrès informing him of the outcome of the battle of Trafalgar.
The ‘Bloodiest [Battle] Ever Recorded’
Despite initial maulings at the hands of the French earlier in the campaign (at Ulm and again at Dürnstein on the Danube, about seventy-three kilometres from Vienna), the Russians had retreated in good order, and the allies were now slowly converging on Olmütz (present-day Olomouc, in the Czech Republic) in the Austrian region of Moravia. There, Alexander and Francis had to decide what to do next. They were essentially reduced to two options: withdraw further east and await the arrival of Austrian and Russian reinforcements; or engage with the enemy towards the south-west, near Brünn (present-day Brno), as soon as possible. The choice was between adopting a defensive strategy until the allies had gathered overwhelming forces and could engage Napoleon in a decisive battle – it seems likely that this is what they were originally intent on doing, as allied troops were arriving from every direction and Prussian troops were threatening Napoleon’s badly outstretched flank – and taking the offensive.131 Kutuzov favoured a withdrawal east, as did most of the senior Russian and Austrian generals, those experienced in war at least, wary of engaging Napoleon. Alexander, surrounded by young, inexperienced subordinates, all of whom were eager to do battle with the French, chose to act.
Napoleon arrived at the village of Brünn on the morning of 20 November, and spent the next day reconnoitring the area. Not far from the village of Austerlitz (Slavkov u Brna), he came across a plateau known as the Pratzen Heights, supposedly saying to one of his aides-de-camp, ‘Young people, study this terrain well, we are going to do battle here.’132 Napoleon occupied the heights and was able to familiarize himself with the terrain over the next week or so, during which time his plan of operations took shape.133 The Austrians too were familiar with the terrain. Their army had conducted manoeuvres there in 1803 and again in 1804.134 On 30 November 1805, however, Napoleon decided to withdraw his troops from the heights, taking up positions in front of them. It is likely he did so thinking that if the allies arrived and saw the French on top of the heights, they might be reluctant to engage in battle. When the combined Austro-Russian army did arrive on 1 December, it looked as though Napoleon had committed a grave tactical error. The Austro-Russian forces numbered about 86,000 men, supported by 278 cannon. The French numbered about 73,000 men with 139 cannon. Napoleon, in other words, was slightly outnumbered and significantly outgunned. Some have seen in the decision to withdraw from the heights an ability on Napoleon’s part to devise an overall plan of operations well before the battle had commenced, so that, like a military Mozart, he saw the whole thing play out in his mind before it happened. It is possible but unlikely.135
Napoleon’s plan was simple, but it rested on two assumptions, neither of which were inevitable: that the allies would leave the Pratzen Heights to attack; and that Marshal Louis-Nicolas Davout would arrive during the day to reinforce his right wing. To arrive, Davout had to force his men to march from Vienna, about 140 kilometres away, in forty-eight hours.136 Indeed, so much was dependent on those assumptions that Napoleon did not even bother making contingency plans. It is true that Major-General Franz von Weyrother a senior commander in the Austrian army, was given leeway to devise a plan that saw the allied left flank and centre descend from the heights to join up with the right wing in a kind of pincer movement that aimed to take Napoleon’s army from the rear. Napoleon guessed that this is what the allies might do, but he could not know it. He was therefore taking an awful gamble by evacuating the heights in the hope that the allies would behave as he predicted.
A scene is described in Tolstoy’s War and Peace in which General Weyrother presented his plan of battle to the assembled commanders, among whom was Kutuzov, asleep. If the scene ever took place, Kutuzov would have known about the plan before it was presented, so the nap, given that he had been marginalized from the decision-making process, may have been nothing more than a silent protest at its inadequacies.137 It proved to be an egotistical gesture; if he had spoken up, it might well have encouraged other officers, Russian or Austrian, to raise objections or point to its flaws. None did, no doubt believing it inappropriate to speak out in the face of the commanding officer’s silence. It would have be
en better if the allies had remained firmly entrenched on the heights in a secure position to await the French onslaught. That they decided against this may have something to do with their desire to save face and to make up for losses incurred in the early stages of the campaign.
On the eve of battle, Napoleon decided to reconnoitre the enemy positions by the light of their bivouac fires, and ventured into the area between the lines. On returning to camp, one of the grenadiers accompanying him decided to make a makeshift torch of burning straw to light his way. He was soon recognized and followed or preceded by many more soldiers with many more torches. As they held them aloft, they began crying out ‘Vive l’Empereur!’ It is said that there was so much light generated by these thousands of torches that the allied camp believed the French had decided either on a night attack or to break camp.138 Many of his troops would have been aware it was the anniversary of Napoleon’s coronation and would have found a release for the tension typical of the night before a great battle, so that there was soon a ‘general conflagration, a movement of enthusiasm’, that may even have taken Napoleon by surprise.139 By all accounts he was visibly touched; when he retired later that night, he is supposed to have said that it was the finest evening of his life.140
