With his southern flank on the point of collapse, the Austrian commander in chief lost no time in ordering an immediate retreat to Ratisbon. This movement proceeded throughout the hours of darkness, covered by the cavalry. Napoleon, meanwhile had reached Egglofsheim with Lannes and Massena, and there held a council of war with his senior generals to settle their future actions. There was a marked disinclination to order an immediate all-out pursuit of the discomfited Charles. The generals were as weary as their men, and for once Napoleon decided to follow their advice. The troops of Morand and Gudin were dropping to the ground fast asleep from where they stood in the ranks, and the Württembergers were hardly in better fettle. Weighing up the pros and cons of an immediate exploitation of his army’s success, Napoleon decided that the dangers of a full-scale night action, with all the inevitable confusions and crises this would entail, might prove too much for his men’s present condition. Consequently, only the cavalry were permitted to follow the foe. Generals Nansouty and Saint-Sulpice moved their 40 squadrons of cuirassiers and a further 34 squadrons of German cavalry to the fore of Gudin’s division and proceeded to harass the enemy horsemen throughout the night; many fierce moonlit encounters occurred. The exhausted infantry divisions meanwhile bivouacked on the field of battle. As a result, the Austrians avoided total disaster.
During the early hours of the 23rd, the leading Austrian formations began to file over the bridges of Ratisbon toward Bohemia. As soon as it was light, Napoleon launched his rested men in pursuit. Except for Massena, sent off to capture Straubing, all the army was ordered toward Ratisbon, for Napoleon was now full of eagerness to get onto the heels of Archduke Charles and attempt to finish the work commenced at Eckmühl. However, the events of the day proved frustrating in the extreme. Old though the fortifications of Ratisbon were, they were staunchly defended by Charles’ rear guard, 6,000 strong. Attack after attack on the deep ditch and fortifications beyond failed to penetrate the defenses, and at one time it appeared that there would be no alternative but to mount a full-scale, regular siege. “But to sit down in front of the walls and open siegeworks and dig trenches and emplacements and mines and batteries, would fatally delay the campaign. Under cover of the siege of Ratisbon, the Archduke Charles would quickly reorganize his defeated army.”21 It was impossible to ignore the place and push on directly for Vienna; such an action would only invite a future Austrian counterattack against the extended French communications by way of the city and its bridge. It seemed, therefore, that the whole campaign would have to come to a standstill until Ratisbon could be reduced. Such a check might persuade Prussia and various other dissident German states to join in the conflict on the side of Austria. This was a dire prospect which Napoleon determined to avoid at all costs; there was consequently no alternative but to order fresh assaults heedless of casualties. The task was entrusted to that reliable fire-eater, Marshal Lannes. Then, while supervising the preparations for the storm, the Emperor was slightly wounded in the right foot by a spent cannonball. The news spread like wildfire throughout the aghast army, but Napoleon lost no time in mounting his horse in spite of considerable pain and rode up and down the lines showing himself to the men and bestowing a considerable number of decorations on deserving soldiers as he passed. Confidence and morale were immediately restored.
At last all was ready for the escalade. Our informant, Baron Marbot, played a leading part in the drama that now unfolded. After two assaults by volunteers drawn from Morand’s division had failed in a costly fashion, no further troops would step forward and take the scaling ladders in hand. “Then the intrepid Lannes exclaimed, ‘Oh, well! I am going to prove to you that before I was a marshal I was a grenadier—and so I am still!’ He seized a ladder, picked it up, and started to carry it toward the breach. His aides-de-camp tried to stop him, but he shouldered us off…. I then addressed him as follows: ‘Monsieur le Maréchal, you wouldn’t want to see us dishonored—but so we shall be if you receive the slightest scratch carrying a ladder toward the ramparts, at least before all your aides have been killed!’ Then, despite his efforts, I snatched away one end of the ladder and put it on my shoulder, while Viry took the other and our fellow aides took hold of more ladders, two by two. At the sight of a Marshal of the Empire disputing with his aides-de-camp as to who should mount first to the assault, a cry of enthusiasm rose from the whole division.” A rush of officers and men followed—” the wine was drawn, it had to be drunk.”22 After a period of confusion and heavy loss, it was Marbot and his comrade La Bédoyère who were first up the ladders and over the walltop. By late evening, all Ratisbon was in French hands except for the outskirts surrounding the bridgehead on the northern bank.
Although Ratisbon had thus been captured by a coup de main, the bridge was still commanded by the enemy. Massena had meanwhile enjoyed no better fortune at Straubing, where he found all the crossings already destroyed. After receiving these tidings, Napoleon was compelled to concede that the Archduke Charles had escaped him, at least for the time being. The chance of a quick knockout blow, as achieved in 1800, 1805 and 1806, had this time passed him by, and the first phase of the Campaign of 1809 was over without a decisive result. Most commentators blame the way in which Napoleon insisted on sending off Massena on a wide sweep toward the River Saale on the 20th. He thus broke up the concentration of the army which he had been so determined to achieve over the preceding three days and deprived himself of a decisive superiority of force during the ensuing actions in the vicinity of the Danube. There is considerable justice in this accusation, but of course Napoleon was not gifted with second sight, which might have revealed the course events were to follow. As we have seen, he completely miscalculated the position, strength and intentions of his adversaries, and even of his own forces, on more than one occasion.
These criticisms notwithstanding, Napoleon undoubtedly changed the overall military situation beyond all recognition in the week following his arrival at the front. Berthier’s errors were retrieved, the initiative undoubtedly regained, and Charles given such a drubbing at Eckmühl that he wrote to the Austrian Emperor soon after: “If we have another engagement such as this I shall have no army left. I am awaiting negotiations.” Napoleon was clearly dominating his adversary and the road to Vienna lay open before him. Moreover, the tactical handling of the succession of battles was particularly brilliant, and over the period the Austrians lost some 30,000 casualties. This was no mean achievement when we remember that a considerable proportion of Napoleon’s army consisted of raw conscripts, and that almost all the crack formations, including the Guard, were absent from these actions. What was more, the fact that Charles was in headlong retreat proved sufficient to dissuade the wavering members of the Confederation—Bavaria, Württemberg and Saxony in particular—from deserting the French alliance. Thus Napoleon had some justification for reasonable satisfaction, and was particularly pleased with the conduct of some of his senior officers. On the 22nd, he found time to parade St. Hilaire’s division and tell its commander in front of his men: “Well, you have earned your marshal’s baton and you shall have it.”23 Fate, however, was to ordain otherwise. Before the coveted insignia could arrive from Paris, St. Hilaire would be dead alongside the irreplaceable Lannes and the able cavalry commander General d’Espagne—all of them destined to be casualties in the grim fighting at Aspern-Essling that lay less than a month away.
The Emperor still had not heard of the fall of Ratisbon and its intact bridge into Austrian hands.
64
ASPERN-ESSLING
With Charles retreating into the mountain fastnesses of Bohemia, Napoleon was faced with the need to recast his strategy. Two main alternatives presented themselves. The Grande Armée might set off in pursuit of the elusive archduke in the hope of forcing a major battle in Bohemia, or it could press on down the Danube for Vienna. On the whole this second course of action seemed to offer more immediate if superficial attractions; a rapid descent on the Austrian capital might lead to a negotiated
peace, and at the same time it could be hoped that such a move would help to disengage the Italian front, where the Viceroy Eugène was being hard-pressed by the Archduke John. At least Napoleon could hope to attract both Charles and John with their armies to make a last stand in defense of their capital, although it would be important to keep the brothers separated and defeat them in detail. A direct pursuit into Bohemia, on the other hand, held the promise of fewer advantages. Charles was already in possession of a good two days’ start, the terrain was both mountainous and devastated, and there would be no natural lines of communication (as was afforded by the Danube for an advance on Vienna), to facilitate the movement and supply of the French army.
On weighing up these considerations, Napoleon decided in favor of the march on Vienna, even though it meant abandoning full-scale pressure against the enemy’s army for the time being. While Davout crossed the Danube with his experienced and battle-hardened IIIrd Corps to maintain pressure on the main Austrian army and delay its reconstitution for as long as possible, the rest of the army would set off eastward down the right bank of the Danube. The French were on the point of receiving important reinforcements; not only was Bernadotte marching to join the main body with his corps of Saxons (the IXth) from Dresden, but the Imperial Guard was in the process of arriving from Spain and Strasbourg. As the long blue-coated columns snaked down the Danube valley, Lefebvre’s 22,000 men were sent to guard the right flank, keeping a wary eye open in the direction of the Tyrol.
Ahead of Napoleon’s main army retired the corps of General Hiller, fighting a series of rear guard actions to delay the French advance and thus win time for the organization of the defense of Vienna. The first action was fought at Wels on May 2, but the subsequent battle for possession of Ebersberg on the 3rd was a really serious affair. Hiller succeeded in gathering about 40,000 troops in the vicinity of the town and proceeded to hold the bridge with the greatest intrepidity. Apparently unaware that Lannes had successfully crossed the River Traun further north and was marching to take Hiller in the rear, Massena launched a large-scale and immensely costly frontal attack on the position. An unnecessary success was dearly bought at a cost of 3,000 casualties including five colonels killed or seriously wounded. Napoleon was angry at this useless loss of life, but Massena maintained that Hiller would have been over the Danube to the safety of the northern bank via the bridge at Mauthausen had he not taken the bull by the horns. As it was, Hiller in due course made good his escape over the river, crossing between Durrenstein and Krems before resuming his retreat to Vienna down the left bank.
Napoleon’s pursuit of Hiller down the Danube was considerably delayed by numerous tributary river courses running across his front. But he now had new reasons for wishing to reach Vienna with the minimum of delay; on the last day of April news had arrived from Italy reporting Eugène’s defeat at Sacile. If pressure was to be relieved on the secondary front, the threat to Vienna had to be implemented immediately.
Fortunately the Austrian high command was already taking this possibility seriously enough. The Archduke Charles was soon carrying out a march from Cham and Pilsen behind the Bohemian Mountains in an attempt to interpose his army between the French and the capital, but Napoleon’s hurrying columns were capable of outdistancing their rivals any day, serious water obstacles notwithstanding. Consequently, the French were within striking distance of Vienna by May 10. Three days later, under threat of bombardment, the Austrian capital opened its gates, but only after its garrison had retired to the northern bank successfully destroying all four bridges behind them. The garrison then proceeded to occupy the suburb of Florisdorf in considerable strength to prevent the repair of the bridges. A short time later, Charles’ army, after joining up with Hiller’s group of corps on the 16th, arrived breathlessly within range of the city, bringing the Austrian strength to 115,000 men, a total completely unknown to Napoleon. They faced only 82,000 Frenchmen (namely the IInd and IVth Corps, the reserve cavalry and the Guard), which were all the troops that Napoleon could muster in the vicinity of Vienna. Thirty-eight thousand more (the VIIIth and IXth Corps) were back on the River Traun, watching Kollowrath’s 25,000 Austrians entrenched on the north bank of the Danube near Linz and at the same time safeguarding Napoleon’s communications with France and his current center of operations against the inconvenience posed by local risings, which now became a constant embarrassment. Davout, after re-crossing his corps to the south bank of the Danube through Straubing and Enns a considerable time earlier, was engaged on similar duties with 35,000 men near St. Polten on the River Traisen, about 40 miles to the west of Vienna, while far away to the southwest, Lefebvre’s VIIth Corps, 22,000 strong, was busily keeping watch from the vicinity of Salzburg on the nearest components of Archduke John’s force, namely 8,000 troops at Innsbruck and 7,000 more under Jellacic on the higher reaches of the River Enns. Meanwhile, the remaining 30,000 Austrians of John’s army were facing the 57,000 Frenchmen of Eugene’s Army of Italy in Carinthia and Carniola. A glance at the map will show how scattered the French dispositions were becoming.
So matters stood on May 17. Napoleon knew that the only way to solve the growing impasse was to attack and destroy Charles’ army before John could reinforce, him, but between him and his prey rolled the grey waters of the mighty Danube, already swollen to dangerous proportions by the spring floods. Yet only on the northern bank could victory be won.
It was clear from Charles’ relative inaction that he intended to wait upon events before risking battle, hoping that his brother John would materialize by way of Tarvis and Graz before Napoleon was able to cross to the northern bank and place himself in an attacking position. Napoleon was indeed faced with something of a quandary; he was in possession of Vienna, but, as in November 1805, this had neither induced the Emperor Francis to open negotiations nor placed the enemy’s army within easy reach. Furthermore, in 1805 the French had gained immediate possession of the vital Danube bridges, but now, in 1809, these were denied them. He desperately needed to acquire a bridgehead on the northern bank if he was ever to destroy Charles’ army, but if all the French moved over the Austrians would be given the opportunity of doubling back to Krems and thence onto the vacated right bank, where they would be able to live off Napoleon’s supplies, at the same time placing themselves in the French rear and closer to the forces of Archduke John. Indeed, part of Charles’ army did make a show of strength toward Linz on May 17 before being beaten back by Bernadotte. Thus both action and inaction held grave perils for the French, and Napoleon was forced to adopt a compromise solution. To guard against the danger of the Austrians recrossing to the right bank, large detachments (Bernadotte, Vandamme and initially Davout) were left holding the river line; at the same time, the remainder of the army (less Lefebvre guarding the right flank) was to secure a bridgehead over the Danube as soon as possible. The latter part of his plan was fraught with more perils than the Emperor at first envisaged. In his eagerness to come to grips with Charles, he ignored the warnings received from several sources about the physical dangers of any such attempt if hastily made without proper preparation; not only would the enemy be in a good position upstream to float down fireships and other obstacles to smash the French bridges, the experts warned, but the Danube was also prone to sudden spates of floodwater in the late spring which might well prove equally fatal to the flimsy pontoons. These bitter lessons Napoleon was soon to learn for himself.
The first question was the selection of the best crossing place. General Bertrand, chief engineer of the army, reported on the 13th that there was no prospect of repairing the Viennese bridges whilst the enemy held the Florisdorf suburb. It was consequently necessary to look elsewhere. After extensive reconnaissances, three more possible bridging places were actively considered. The closest convenient point to the city and the narrowest water crossing was to be found at Nussdorf, but this site was deemed too perilous on account of nearby Bissam Hill, strongly held by the enemy, while the current at that point was also
very rapid. The experts then examined the possibilities of Fischamend (ten miles east of the city), but decided that this was too far distant from the center of operations at Vienna. The third possibility was near Kaiser-Ebersdorf, four miles from Vienna. Here the river was wider, but the current slower and the water shallower. The island of Lobau was also conveniently placed within 100 yards of the north bank, a feature that would provide some protection from direct artillery fire for the long bridge spans running to the south bank, besides serving as a useful forward post. Furthermore, bridging materials could easily be floated downstream to this point from Vienna. Accordingly, the decision was made in favor of the third site. The main bridge was to cross onto Lobau island; a secondary crossing was to be built at Nussdorf to distract the enemy’s attention. Materials were collected, and soon the work was in hand.
From the first, however, nothing went smoothly. Lannes’ efforts to build the Nussdorf bridge were soon abandoned, and General Bertrand decided to do without the protective pallisades and manned flotillas of river boats at the Lobau bridge in the interests of speed and economy. The French had no conception that the Austrians would be able to oppose their crossing in force, believing Charles to be still some distance away near Brünn, and consequently Napoleon allowed the safety of this vital bridge to be neglected.
In fact by May 16 the Archduke Charles was already within a few miles of the river. He was taking steps to ensure that his forces could dominate the area of ground known as the Marchfeld which lies between the Danube and the nearby high ground. Directly to the north runs the line of hills dominated by the Bissamberg close by the Danube; to the northeast and east lies a low escarpment, along the foot of which flows a small stream, the Russbach. On its banks stand several villages, including that of Wagram. Between and in front of these ridges stretched a practically uninterrupted plain, dotted with a number of hamlets and townships, the most notable being Aspern, Essling and Gross-Enzersdorf opposite Lobau island. To dominate this area, Charles’ army had taken up the following positions by 5:00
The Campaigns of Napoleon Page 86
