It was Napoleon"s pride that in his campaigns no enemy should lay down the law to him. He did not ask, How will my foe behave? What must I do to thwart him?-that was defensive warfare. For his purposes he must ask, Whence can I best strike? This question he now answered by selecting the valley of the Danube as his line of approach, and Ratisbon as his headquarters. He had before him the most difficult task he had so far undertaken. The concentration and sustenance of his troops must be made along the line of very least resistance. Davout had four divisions-one each in Magdeburg, Hanover, Stettin, and Bayreuth; he was also in command of the Poles and Saxons. Bernadotte had two divisions distributed in Hamburg, Bremen, and Lubeck; Oudinot had one in Hanau; the soldiers of the Rhine Confederation were scattered in all its towns. Two other divisions were just starting for Spain. In the beginning of March Berthier was again appointed chief of staff, and the Emperor"s orders were issued. They were as clear, concise, and adequate as any of his best; he was once more on familiar ground, under ordinary conditions, facing a well-known foe, whose strength was greater than ever before, but whose ident.i.ty was still the same. Davout was to collect his troops at Bamberg, the Poles were to remain in Warsaw, the Saxons in Dresden. To the latter capital Bernadotte should lead his army and then a.s.sume command. Oudinot was ordered to Augsburg, where he was to be reinforced. The departing divisions were brought to a halt and sent back to Ulm for Ma.s.sena"s command, while two fresh ones were gathered in France and sent to Strasburg. The Rhine princes were to have their contingents ready and await orders.
A glance at the map will show that, as Napoleon said, he could then in an emergency reach Munich like lightning. But he expected no move from his enemy before the middle of April. By that time he hoped to have his German army gathered, equipped, and ready; in the interval the forces already on the ground could hold Charles in check; by the end of March there would be a hundred thousand French in Bamberg, Ulm, and Augsburg, with thirty thousand Bavarians under Lefebvre about Munich; before the outbreak of hostilities he hoped to have a total of two hundred thousand available fighting troops. "Should the Austrians attack before April tenth," were the orders given on March twenty-eighth, "the army shall be collected behind the Lech, the right occupying Augsburg, the left resting on the right bank of the Danube at Donauworth." Then followed the most minute instructions to Berthier, explaining every move, and setting forth the reasons why Ratisbon had been chosen as headquarters. This would a.s.sure control of the Danube, keep open a line of communication, and enable the writer so to control s.p.a.ce and time that he could open the campaign much as he chose.
These dispositions had already compelled another change of plan by the Austrians. They had expected a repet.i.tion of Moreau"s advance by Munich; instead, they were called on to defend their capital a second time. Two divisions were left to watch the Bohemian Forest; the rest of the army, with Charles at its head, set out, by the circuitous route through Linz, to join Hiller and a.s.sume the offensive in the Danube valley. In case of a battle the two divisions were to come up by the short, direct route through Ratisbon, and add their strength to the main army. On the declaration of hostilities the Austrians at once crossed the Inn and began their march; it was the sixteenth before they reached the line of the Isar. Had the Archduke not been so sparing of his troops, wearied as they were by the circuit through Linz, he might have changed the course of history. Napoleon had not yet arrived, and Berthier, who was but human, had proved unequal to the execution of his commander"s orders.
It had been the object of Napoleon to gather his army on a certain definite, well-connected line, and thence use it as necessity demanded. Instead of obeying the letter of his instructions, Berthier had struggled to obey their spirit, and had failed. The command on the left bank had been a.s.signed to Davout; that of all the troops on the other side had been given to Ma.s.sena; the latter was to concentrate on the Lech, the former at Ingolstadt. So far all was good; then Berthier lost his head (the critics say he never could have learned strategy, if he had had ten lives), and, swerving from the clear letter of Napoleon"s orders, he attempted a more rapid combination-not that behind the Lech, but one directly at Ratisbon. Davout was to march thither and remain there; the other divisions were successively to join him. The result was that three days elapsed before any army was gathered at all; the two portions, one at Ratisbon, the other at Augsburg, being for that time widely separated, and each exposed to the separate attack of an enemy without possibility of cooperation by the other half.
When the Archduke Charles learned the general situation of his enemy he determined to do exactly this thing-that is, to attack and overwhelm each portion of the French army separately. For this purpose he crossed the Isar, and, turning to the right, marched directly on Ratisbon to attack Davout"s command with his superior force before Ma.s.sena"s scattered divisions could reach the positions a.s.signed to them. But he was too late. The semaph.o.r.e telegraph then in use had flashed from station to station its signals of the declaration of war and of the enemy"s advance over the Inn, until the news reached Napoleon in Paris on the twelfth. On the sixteenth, after four days" almost unbroken travel, he reached Donauworth. The confusion into which Berthier"s orders had thrown his carefully arranged plans infuriated him; but when he heard, as he descended from his traveling-carriage, where the enemy was, he could not believe his ears. When a.s.sured of the truth he seemed, as eye-witnesses declared, to grow taller, his eyes began to sparkle, and with every indication of delight he cried: "Then I have him! That"s a lost army! In one month we are in Vienna!" The enemy"s first decisive blunder was the march by Linz; the second was yet to be made.
Napoleon"s strategy during the following days was, both in his own opinion and in that of his military commentators, the greatest of his life. Such had been Berthier"s indecision when he saw his blunder that one general at least-to wit, Pelet-charged him with being a traitor. In twenty-four hours his puzzled humor and conflicting orders had more or less demoralized the whole army. But Napoleon"s presence inspired every one with new vigor, from the division commanders to the men in the ranks. Promptly on the seventeenth the order went forth for Davout to leave Ratisbon and challenge the enemy to battle by a flank march up the right bank of the Danube to Ingolstadt in his very face. Lefebvre was to cover the movement, and Wrede, with one Bavarian division, was held ready to strengthen any weak spot in case of battle. Next day Ma.s.sena was ordered to set out from Augsburg for the same point, "to unite with the army, catch the enemy at work, and destroy his columns." To this end he was to march eastward by Pfaffenhofen. In a twinkling the scattered French army seemed already concentrated, while scouts came one after the other to announce that the Austrians were separating.
The Austrians had crossed the Isar in good order, Charles himself at Landshut. If they had kept directly onward they might have still wedged themselves between Davout and Lefebvre. But the Archduke grew timid at the prospect of swamps and wooded hills before him; uncertain of his enemy"s exact position, he threw forward three separate columns by as many different roads, and thus lengthened his line enormously, the right wing being at Essenbach, the center advanced before Landshut to Hohen-Thann, the left at Morsbach. At four in the morning of the eighteenth Lefebvre received orders to fall on the Austrian left, while flying messengers followed each other in quick succession to spur on Ma.s.sena with urgent pleas of immediate necessity. It was hoped that he might come up to join an attack which, though intended mainly to divert the Austrians from Davout, could by his help be turned into an important victory.
The Archduke during the day collected sixty-six thousand men at Rohr for his onset, and thirty-five thousand men at Ludmannsdorf to cover his flank, leaving twenty-five thousand at Moosburg. That night Davout"s last corps, that of Friant, came in, and he began his march. Ma.s.sena, who had collected his army and was coming from Augsburg, was ordered to turn, either left toward Abensberg, in order to join Davout, or right toward Landshut, to attack Charles"s rear, as circ.u.mstances should determine. Lefebvre was now commanded to a.s.sume the defensive and await events at Abensberg. Throughout the morning of the nineteenth Davout and Charles continued their march, drawing ever closer to each other. At eleven the French van and the Austrian left collided. The latter made a firm stand, but were driven in with great slaughter.
A considerable force which had been sent to strike Davout on the flank at Abensberg was also defeated by Lefebvre. Before evening the entire French army was united and in hand. Davout was on the left toward the river Laber, Lefebvre, with the Bavarians and several French divisions, was in the center beyond the river Aben, while Ma.s.sena had reached a point beyond Moosburg. Within sixty hours Napoleon had conceived and completed three separate strategic movements: the withdrawal of the whole army toward Ingolstadt, the advance of his right to strengthen the incoming left, and the rearrangement of his entire line with the right on his enemy"s base of operations.
"In war you see your own troubles; those of the enemy you cannot see. You must show confidence," wrote the French emperor about this time to Eugene. How true it was of his own course! On the morning of the twenty-first he declared that the enemy was in full retreat. This was over-confidence on his part, and not true; but it might as well have been. As a result of the preceding day"s skirmishing and countermarching the Austrian army was almost cut in two; one division, the right, under Charles, was pressing on to Ratisbon, while the other, under Hiller, was marching aimlessly behind in a general northwesterly direction, and the whole straggling line was not less than twenty miles in length. Lannes, the st.u.r.diest, most rough-and-ready of all the marshals, had arrived from Spain the night before. His presence increased the army"s confidence that they would win, and next day he commanded a division formed from the corps of Morand, Gudin, and Nansouty. Davout received orders to hold the enemy in front; Ma.s.sena was to spread out along their rear from Moosburg down the Isar, ready to hara.s.s either flank or rear with half his strength, and to send the rest, under Oudinot, to Abensberg.
On the morning of the twentieth the Emperor himself, with Lannes and Wrede, set out to sever the enemy"s line. They had little difficulty. The thin column dispersed before them to the north and south. Hiller was driven back to Landshut, whence he fled to Neumarkt, leaving the Isar in possession of the French. Davout advanced simultaneously against the Archduke"s army, which, although very much stronger than Hiller"s division, nevertheless retired and occupied Eckmuhl, standing drawn up on the highroad toward Ratisbon. At Landshut the Emperor became aware that the ma.s.s of the Austrian army was not before him, but before Davout. Leaving Bessieres and two divisions of infantry, with a body of cavalry, to continue the pursuit of Hiller, he turned back toward Eckmuhl at three in the morning of the twenty-second. Here, again, a great resolve was taken in the very nick of time and in the presence of the enemy. With the same iron will and burning genius, the same endurance and pertinacity, as of old, he pressed on at the head of his soldiers. It was one o"clock when the eighteen-mile march was accomplished and the enemy"s outposts before Eckmuhl were reached.
Meantime one of the Austrian divisions left in Bohemia had arrived at Ratisbon. Charles, strengthened by this reinforcement, had determined to take the offensive, and at noon his advance began. Vandamme seemed destined to bear the force of the onset, but in the moment before the shock would have occurred, appeared Napoleon"s van. Advancing rapidly with Lannes, the Emperor rode to the top of a slight rise, and, scanning the coming Austrians, suddenly ordered Vandamme to seize Eckmuhl, and then despatched Lannes to cross the Laber and circ.u.mvent the enemy. Davout, having learned the direction of the Austrian charge, threw himself against the hostile columns on their right, and after a stubborn resistance began to push back the dogged foe. In less than two hours the French right, left, and center were all advancing, and the enemy were steadily retreating, but fighting fiercely as they withdrew. This continued until seven in the evening, when Lannes finally accomplished his task.
This destroyed all resistance. The Emperor weakly yielded to his generals" remonstrance that the troops were exhausted, and did not order a pursuit. Charles withdrew into Ratisbon. During the night and early morning he threw a pontoon bridge across the stream, which was already spanned by a stone one, and next day, after a skirmish in which his outposts were driven into the town, he crossed the Danube; three days later he effected a junction with his second division, left in the Bohemian Forest, and stood at Cham with an effective fighting force of eighty thousand men. The result proved that Napoleon"s judgment had been unerring; had he pursued, in spite of all remonstrance and in disregard of the fatigue of his men, he would have had no mighty foe to fight a few weeks later at Wagram. Some time thereafter he told an Austrian general that he had deliberated long, and had refrained from following Charles into Bohemia for fear the Northern powers would rise and come to the a.s.sistance of Austria. "Had I pursued immediately," he said at St. Helena, "as the Prussians did after Waterloo, the hostile army crowded on to the Danube would have been in the last extremity."
"Labor is my element," he remarked on the same dreary isle almost amid the pangs of dissolution. "I have found the limit of my strength in eye and limb; I have never found the limit of my capacity for work." This was certainly true of this five days" fight. "His Majesty is well," wrote Berthier on the twenty-fourth, "and endures according to his general habit the exertion of mind and body." Once more his enemy was not annihilated, but this contentment and high spirits seem natural to common minds, which recall that in a week he had evolved order from chaos, and had stricken a powerful, united foe, cutting his line in two, and sending one portion to the right-about in utter confusion. To the end of his life Napoleon regarded the strategic operations culminating at Eckmuhl as his masterpiece in that particular line. Jomini, his able critic, remained always of the same opinion. French history knows this conflict as the Battle of Five Days; Thann, Abensberg, Landshut, Eckmuhl, and Ratisbon being the places in or near which on each day a skirmish or combat occurred to mark the successive stages of French victory.
The results were of the most important kind. In the first place, Austria"s pride and confidence were gone. She had lost fifty thousand men, and her warfare was no longer offensive, but defensive. Charles called for peace, but the Emperor would not listen. The Archduke John, moreover, was compelled to abandon the Tyrol, and when he found himself again in Italy, he was no longer confronted by Eugene alone, that excellent youth but feeble general, whom he had so easily defeated: Macdonald was a.s.sociated with the viceroy in the command. In Poland, also, Ferdinand"s easy successes had carried him too far in pursuit of Poniatowski, and he began to retreat. Lefebvre with the Bavarians was stationed at Salzburg to prevent an irruption of the Tyrolean mountaineers toward the north; all the rest of the Emperor"s army was immediately ordered to march on the Austrian capital.
The advance was scarcely contested. Hiller, commanding Charles"s left wing, had paused in his retreat, and crossing the Inn with his thirty thousand men, had successfully attacked Wrede at Erding. He had probably heard that Charles was marching to Pa.s.sau, but the news was false. Learning the truth, he turned again and recrossed the Inn; thence he continued to withdraw, stopping an instant at the Traun to avail himself of a strong position and hold the line if Charles were perchance coming thither to join him. At Ebelsberg, on May third, he made a splendid and momentarily successful resistance, but was overwhelmed by superior numbers. Hearing of his leader"s slow advance, and being himself in despair, on the seventh he led his army at Mautern across to the left bank of the Danube in order to effect a junction with the disheartened Archduke, and then destroyed the bridge behind him. The forces of Charles and Hiller met and halted on the slopes of the great hill known as the Bisamberg, which overlooks Vienna from the north sh.o.r.e, and commands the fertile plains through which the great river rolls past the Austrian capital.
Battle of Eckmuhl 22 April 1809.
Day after day, with unimportant interruptions but no real check, the French ranks marched down the right bank of the stream. On May tenth they appeared before Vienna. Then, as now, it had no efficient fortifications, and its garrison consisted of a citizen militia, strengthened by a small detachment which Hiller had sent forward to reinforce and encourage them. The defenders were commanded by the Archduke Maximilian. There was a brave show of resistance; all the suburbs were evacuated, and the populace gathered behind the old brick walls which had been erected two centuries before against the Turks. At first Napoleon thought there would be a second instance of such embittered and desperate resistance as he had encountered at Madrid. But a feint of the French to cut off the communication of the town with the river, together with a few cannon-b.a.l.l.s, quickly brought the unhappy capital to terms; Maximilian marched out at midnight on the eleventh, and on the twelfth Napoleon returned to the neighboring palace of Schonbrunn, where he had already established his headquarters. The news which arrived from day to day was most encouraging. Poniatowski was again in possession of Warsaw, which the Archduke Ferdinand had evacuated in order to rejoin his brother Charles. The Archduke John, flying before Macdonald, had pa.s.sed the Carinthian mountains into Hungary, where the liberal movement threatened Austrian rule. The Bavarians, after desperate fighting under Lefebvre, had driven the Tyrolese rebels from Innsbruck. It seemed a proper time to complete, if possible, the demoralization of the whole Austrian empire before crossing the Danube to annihilate its military force. Francis had sown the wind in his declaration of war: he must reap the whirlwind.
From the beginning Napoleon had made the most of his enemy"s being the aggressor. There were no terms too harsh for the "Moniteur" to apply when speaking of the hostile court and the resisting populations. The Emperor"s proclamations reveled in abuse of the Tyrolese and of Schill. The latter was a Prussian partizan who, having distinguished himself after Jena, was now striving to use the Austrian war in order to arouse the North Germans. He had already gathered a few desperate patriots, and in open hostility was defying const.i.tuted authority with the intention of calling his country to arms. The news of Eckmuhl had destroyed his chances of success, and he was soon to end his gallant but ill-starred career in a final stand at Stralsund, whither he had retreated. He was stigmatized by Napoleon as a "sort of robber, who had covered himself with crimes in the last Prussian campaign." In repeated public utterances the Emperor of Austria was characterized as cowardly, thankless, and perjured, while the Viennese were addressed as "good people, abandoned and widowed." The last acts of their flying rulers had been murder and arson; "like Medea, they had with their own hands strangled their own children."
This policy of wooing the people while abusing their rulers had been successfully undertaken in Italy, and continued with varying results from that day. No more effective revolutionary engine could have been devised for Europe in Napoleon"s age. The specious statements of the Emperor were based on truth, and while the idea they expressed was distorted and reiterated until its exaggeration became falsehood, yet France and the Napoleonic soldiers appeared to fight and suffer enthusiastically for what they still considered a great cause. Even the dull boors, whose intelligence had been nearly quenched by centuries of oppression, felt stirrings of manhood as they listened to the Emperor"s fiery words; the middle cla.s.ses, though not deceived, had no power to refute such language from such a man; and among the few truly enlightened men of each nation who were aware of their country"s abas.e.m.e.nt under dynastic absolutism, a tremendous impression was often created, at least temporarily.
This fact had already been well ill.u.s.trated in Poland. Austria had another appanage whose people cared little for the prestige of their foreign kings and much for their own liberties. The Hungarians were a conservative, capable race; many of them were ardent Protestants, well educated and well informed, successfully combining in their inst.i.tutions the best elements of both civic and patriarchal life. To them Napoleon issued a proclamation on May fifteenth which was a masterpiece of its kind. It set forth that the Emperor Leopold II in his short reign had acknowledged their rights and confirmed their liberties; that Francis I had sworn to maintain their laws and const.i.tution, but had never convoked their estates except to demand money for his wars; that in view of such treatment, Hungary should now rise and secure national independence. The proclamation produced some effect, but as a whole the Hungarians stood fast in their allegiance.
Four years earlier Napoleon"s proclamation declaring that the Bourbons of Naples had ceased to reign was launched from Schonbrunn. Now another, to which reference has already been made, equally famous, was dictated within its walls, though dated, May seventeenth, from the "Imperial Camp at Vienna." It was a doc.u.ment even abler than that addressed to the Hungarians. Citing the abuses which had from immemorial times resulted from the confusion of temporal with spiritual power in the papacy, it revoked the donation of Charles the Great to Hadrian I (made a thousand years before!), declared that Pius VII had ceased to reign, and that, as an indemnity for the loss of his secular power, he was to receive an annual increase of income amounting to two million francs. In time of peace this decree would have produced throughout Europe a tremendous stir; but in the interval between the two acts of a great campaign, men were much more occupied with speculations about the decision of arms than with a change which was, after all, only another phase of a protracted, tiresome struggle in which the papacy had long since fallen from its pinnacle. It was, however, an element of terrific demoralization in the house of Austria, which thus saw the consolidation of Italy under the Napoleon family complete, and their last hope to regain their European influence by enlargement in that peninsula extinguished.
Such was the scenic diversion provided for the great world in the pause of a few days after the occupation of Vienna. These moments were likewise occupied by the greatest military activity. Morning, noon, and night secretaries wrote and messengers ran; the roads of central Europe resounded beneath the feet of tramping infantry and the hoofs of horses which were dragging provision-trains and artillery carriages, or bearing despatches to distant points.
The Archduke Charles was a fine strategic theorist, in his age second only to Napoleon. After the fatal division of his army before Landshut, he had wonderfully retrieved his strength in seizing Ratisbon, crossing the Danube, and standing at Cham eighty thousand strong, as he did after his reinforcement by the division which he called in from the Bohemian Forest. But again he became the victim of indecision. Calling for peace negotiations, he loitered long at Budweis, failed to join Hiller so as to throw their united force across the French advance to Vienna, and when at last he brought up on the slopes of the Bisamberg he seemed for an instant aimless. Thus can the hope of peace paralyze a great general"s activity. But when, having offered to open negotiations with his adversary, he received no answer, when he learned that the Austrian ministry also was determined to fight the struggle out, he was himself again. His plan was the greatest perhaps ever devised by him: so great, indeed, that four years later Napoleon made it his own at Dresden. It was to free Vienna by threatening the French communications.
The idea was old enough; the novelty lay in the details. Kollowrath was to detach twenty-five thousand men from his own force, and to seize Linz with its bridge; the Archduke John was to join the Army of the Tyrol, which had retreated to the head waters of the Enns, and then march with fifty thousand men to the same point. But Ma.s.sena was already master of the Enns valley, and Bernadotte was sent to a.s.sist Vandamme at Linz. The Emperor had already divined the plan, and thwarted it by the rapidity with which his orders were transmitted and distant divisions summoned. The communications were threatened, but not broken, and Napoleon gave his whole attention to the problem of crossing a great river in the face of an enemy. He had done it before, but never under circ.u.mstances so peculiar as these which confronted him in the size of the Danube and the strength of his foe.
The mighty stream follows for the most part a single channel until it enters the plains which face Vienna on the north, where, at intervals, it divides into several arms, inclosing numerous islands. These branches are nearly all substantial streams; many of them are navigable. It was determined to choose two such points, one above and the other below the town, to build bridges at both, and to select whichever one should prove more feasible when the task was done. The enterprise above the town failed entirely through the vigilance of the Austrians. Ma.s.sena had better success at the other end, and succeeded in gathering sufficient material without great difficulty; his bridges between the two sh.o.r.es by the island of Lobau were ready on May twentieth. In this interval Charles advanced, and occupied a line farther forward in the great plain, stretching from hamlet to hamlet-from Korneuburg, Enzersfeld, and Gross-Ebersdorf to Strebersdorf. Eugene and Macdonald had reached Villach, whence they could march direct to Vienna; the Archduke John was at Volkermarkt, on his way down the Drave toward Hungary. Two days before, eight hundred French soldiers had crossed into the island of Lobau to drive out the Austrian scouts; on the nineteenth Napoleon arrived, and the necessary fortifications were constructed; on the twentieth the pa.s.sage began, and Ma.s.sena, with Lannes"s light cavalry, was sent out to reconnoiter.[Back to Contents]
CHAPTER XVI.
Aspern, Essling, and Wagram.[31]
The Marchfeld - Tactics of the Two Armies - The Battle in Aspern and Essling - The Indecisive Result - Napoleon"s Retreat - Character of the Battle - Discontent in the French Army - The Spirit of Austria - Preparations to Renew the Conflict - The French Army on the Lobau - Napoleon"s New Tactics - The First Day of Wagram - Napoleon"s Use of Artillery - The Second Day of Wagram - The Victory Dearly Bought - A French Panic - Napoleon"s Dilemma.
Charles, having apparently determined to let his enemy cross unmolested, and to fight the decisive battle on his own ground, had advanced meantime to still another line of hamlets-Strebersdorf, Gerasdorf, Deutsch-Wagram. On the morning of the twenty-first Napoleon"s army was partly across the main stream, some of his troops being yet on the Lobau, some entirely over on the left bank, but a large portion still on the right bank. His cavalry was again sent to clear the Marchfeld of the Austrian light horse, who were coursing from one vantage-point to another; and he himself, in order to survey the country, advanced to the first slight rise beyond the low meadows which border the river. Near where he stood was the comfortable hamlet of Aspern, composed like the others round about of one-story stone houses and high stone barns, some of which are of great size, with walls many feet thick. The farmsteads and churchyards are inclosed with ordinary masonry walls. At a short distance to the eastward lay Essling, which, like Aspern, had a few hundred inhabitants, and farther still, but easily visible, the somewhat larger village of Enzersdorf. The plain, though not rolling, is yet not perfectly flat, and small watercourses traverse it at frequent intervals, their direction marked by the trees growing on their banks. The most important of these, the Russbach, was some miles north of where he stood. Turning to Ma.s.sena, after scanning the ground, he said: "I shall refuse on the left, and advancing on the right, turn in the Austrian front to the left." That is, he would leave his own left on the river, turn the Austrian left, and rolling up their line, inclose them with their rear to the Danube. His success would be their annihilation, for they had no means of crossing in retreat.
To men of less daring this would have seemed a mad plan. A careful general would, without hesitation, have seized and strongly garrisoned Aspern, Essling, and Enzersdorf, in order that his own line of retreat might be secure, and sufficient room be a.s.sured in which to deploy. Pelet, in his memoirs, declares that the Emperor"s orders were "to cross the river and march against the enemy." Be this as it may, there were as yet only three infantry divisions on the left bank of the Danube, and Aspern was but weakly garrisoned. Charles was determined to maintain if possible his superiority of numbers. The river was somewhat swollen and he sent floats laden with stones down the main channel to crash through Napoleon"s bridges. The attempt met with only slight success, though it weakened the most important bridge. Meantime the Austrians were advancing in five columns, one by Breitenlee against Aspern, one by Aderklaa against Essling, one direct on Enzersdorf to their left; the two others were cavalry, and bore in the general direction of Breitenlee toward Aspern. They appeared in full sight about one o"clock, the column destined to attack Napoleon being nearest. Napoleon"s over-confidence disappeared at once, and while the Austrians deployed for the attack, and occupied Aspern, he sent in Molitor"s division to seize and hold that hamlet, Ma.s.sena being in command. The divisions of Legrand and Boudet were in the rear, on the right and left respectively. Bessieres, with the cavalry of Lasalle and Espagne, stood between Aspern and Essling; the division of Carra Saint-Cyr arrived later and was held in reserve. Lannes and Boudet, with a small force, were ordered to hold Essling. Enzersdorf was abandoned, and quickly occupied by the Austrian left.
The fighting at Aspern was awful. The French pushed in, were driven out, then turned and seized the place again. Once more, and still once more, the same alternation of success and defeat was repeated, the thickest of the fight being at the churchyard in the western end of the village. At Essling the fore-post about which the battle raged was a great barn with mighty walls and vaulted cellars. Meanwhile the Emperor was calling in his troops as fast as possible from behind, but at three in the afternoon his main bridge over the chief arm of the Danube gave way before ma.s.ses of rubbish brought down from the hill-country by a freshet, which was hourly increasing in volume. The Austrians were from first to last superior in numbers on the battle-field; their enfilading batteries were able to sweep the French lines for several hours, and the carnage was dreadful. At last Bessieres succeeded in dislodging them from Essling, and by great exertion that place was held until dusk, when the Austrians drew off to bivouac. But at Aspern the numbers engaged were greater, Legrand being sent in toward nightfall. The Archduke intended to take and hold the village if possible, and the fighting continued there until midnight. Weakened and inferior in numbers though the French were, they understood better than their foes the defense of such a place, and when firing ceased they still held half of the long main street.
Battle of Aspern or Essling. 21st of May 1809.
Battle of Aspern or Essling. 22nd of May 1809.
By midnight the French bridge was again repaired, and Davout, in response to Napoleon"s urgent orders, began to bring up reinforcements, especially artillery, holding them on the south sh.o.r.e of the main stream in readiness for crossing. At two in the morning the Austrians made still another effort to drive out the enemy from Aspern; soon afterward they again attacked Essling. Ma.s.sena called in Carra Saint-Cyr to Aspern; within an hour both attacks had been repulsed, and the latter hamlet was entirely cleared of the enemy. While the desperate struggle again went on, the Emperor once more surveyed the field; and when at seven in the morning Davout sent word that a portion of the reinforcements was already on the Lobau, Napoleon determined to break through the enemy"s center, and for that purpose threw forward the troops already on the ground. But once more the weakened and patched structure over the Danube gave way, and the arrival of reinforcements was stopped; the available French force was immediately drawn back, and stationed to hold the line from Aspern to Essling. The enemy was encouraged and pressed on to the attack with renewed vigor; in the former village the scenes of the previous day were repeated, first one and then the other contestant holding it for a time. In the center, where the Austrians almost broke through the line, Napoleon quickly brought together his recently arrived artillery and Bessieres"s cavalry; after terrific struggles they succeeded in holding the Austrians in check. On the right Essling, after being captured and recaptured several times by each side, was taken and long held by the enemy"s left; it was then retaken at about three in the afternoon, by a portion of the French reserve, Napoleon"s "young guard." Thereupon, from the sheer exhaustion of both sides, the conflict ceased, nothing being heard but desultory discharges of artillery. The French were in possession of both Aspern and Essling. At seven the Emperor called a council of war; the generals advised recrossing the Danube and a retreat into Vienna. "You must mean to Strasburg," said their chief; "for if Charles should follow, he might drive me thither, and if he should march to cut me off at Linz, I must march thither, too, to meet him. In either case, I must abandon the capital, my only source of supplies." There was no reply, and it was determined to withdraw into the Lobau, and hold it until a stronger bridge could be constructed and Davout bring over his entire force. After two days of terrific defensive fighting,-so terrific that the Austrians were several times on the point of retreat,-Napoleon was obliged to abandon the field.
The night of May twenty-second was the beginning of such bitterness for the French emperor as he had not yet tasted. His enemy"s forces numbered about seventy thousand, his own perhaps forty-five thousand; but this was entirely his own fault, due largely to overweening confidence in himself and a weak contempt for foes who, after a long and severe novitiate, now fought like veteran Frenchmen, and were led by one who had learned the lessons of Napoleon"s own strategy. Five times Essling had been lost and won; how often Aspern had been captured and retaken could only be estimated. Both hamlets were now abandoned by the French. The last Austrian charge against the center had been made and repelled with fiery valor, but in it Lannes was mortally wounded. The grand total, therefore, of the two days was a loss of gallant troops by the thousand, and of this marshal, Napoleon"s greatest division general, the friend of his youth, and the only surviving one that was both fearless and honest. Worse even than this, the "unconquerable," though not conquered, had been checked, and that, too, not in a corner, as in Spain or at Eylau, but in the sight of all Europe, on a field chosen by himself.
As the war-sick Emperor pa.s.sed the litter on which lay his old comrade, he threw himself on the living but maimed and half-conscious form in an agony of tenderness; and that night, as he sat at table before an untasted meal, briny tears rolled over cheeks which did not often know the sensation. But the bulletin which he dictated ran, "The enemy withdrew to their position, and we remained masters of the field." This latter clause was exactly as true of the French at Aspern as it had been of the Russians at Eylau-the affair was a technical victory, a moral defeat. The Austrians celebrated the battle as their victory, the honors of which they accorded to the last cavalry charge under Prince John Liechtenstein; and in the peaceful churchyard at Aspern lies the effigy of a majestic lion stricken to the heart, as a reminder to patriotic Austrians of those two days" victorious fighting, which literally drenched the spot with blood. "We could not use the victory," wrote Charles"s chief of staff on the twenty-fourth; "for the enemy"s strong position made pursuit impossible." This he well knew, because the night before the Austrians had tried with signal failure to dislodge the French army from the Lobau.
The respective feelings of the two forces are mirrored in two facts. On the twenty-third Napoleon again visited Lannes, who was now fully conscious and aware that he was doomed. He was as fearless as ever and with the stern candor of an old republican poured out to the Emperor all that he felt. The army, he said, was weary of bloodshed, the nation of its sense of exhaustion; for both were alike aware that they suffered and bled no longer for a principle, but for the boundless ambition of one man. The veteran marshal refused all sympathy or consolation, and turned his face to the wall. Both Marbot and Pelet declare that this story of Cadet de Ga.s.sicourt is an invention; if so, it is a clever one, for we know from other sources that the language ascribed to Lannes expressed the sentiments of the soldiery. As there was little chance for booty in such rapid marching and constant fighting, the youth and the poor were disheartened. The great fortunes won by the officers were of little use while peace was denied for their enjoyment; the millions of Ma.s.sena did not save him from the exposures and hardships of the battle-field, and he confessed that he loved luxury and immoral self-indulgence. Such voices had created an undercurrent of discontent.
The feeling of Charles and his soldiers was not greatly different. There was nothing possible as the result of their victory but to take up a more comfortable position on the same Marchfeld which had witnessed their losses. Before them were the bodies of ten thousand dead and four times that number had been wounded: losses which were about equally divided between their brethren and their foes. The Archduke urged that now was the time for diplomacy. The battle of Aspern had softened Napoleon, he said, and Austria might secure an advantageous peace. But Francis had not changed his nature; he would await the final decision. His brother Ferdinand would soon arrive from Poland, and John was already in Hungary. To Frederick William III he had offered Warsaw if Prussia would only come to his a.s.sistance. But the King of Prussia was stubborn. Fearing lest Austria should secure German leadership, and expecting in the end to gain more from Russia, he refused, in spite of the earnest advice of all his ministers, to a.s.sist his rival. It was only when he was a.s.sured that Alexander intended to remain neutral that he consented to a secret armament, but then it was too late. The insurrection in Westphalia, to a.s.sist which Schill, in disobedience of orders, had led his battalion of hussars from Berlin, was easily suppressed. This fact, with Napoleon"s signal success in Bavaria, seemed to justify Frederick William, and the failure of Francis to secure any advantage after Aspern confirmed the opinion. Such, however, was the temper of the Prussian people that, under moral compulsion, their King finally proposed formal terms of alliance. Austria"s real spirit appeared in her vague answer. She first asked England for more a.s.sistance, but failing to secure it, turned ungraciously and with indefinite proposals to Prussia. Her envoy of course found no response. Thus it was that Charles and Napoleon lay for weeks watching each other like gladiators, each ready to take advantage of any false step made by the other, and both steadily gathering strength to renew the struggle in the same arena.
Napoleon seemed to make his preparations with a determination to risk all in the next encounter. His line of communication with the west was abandoned altogether; the Tyrol, too, was virtually evacuated, and Lefebvre, with the Bavarians, relieved Vandamme and Bernadotte at Linz, so that both the latter might at once advance within striking distance. Eugene had reached Bruck in Styria, and was therefore at hand; Marmont with ten thousand men was called from Illyria. Being thus safe toward the south, the Emperor sent two divisions to watch the Austrians at Presburg. Before June tenth he had compacted in and about Vienna an army of two hundred and forty thousand men. On the thirteenth the Archduke John, having turned and advanced toward Raab, was attacked, defeated, and driven back into Hungary by Eugene, who had learned, if not generalship, at least obedience, and having carefully obeyed his stepfather"s injunctions, had thus won an important victory.
Meantime all was activity on the Lobau. A new and solid bridge was built across the main stream. To forestall another such accident as had occurred before, this structure was not only protected by piles, but guarded by rowboats which were armed with field-pieces and manned by artillerymen. The enemy had withdrawn behind the Russbach in a line from Deutsch-Wagram to Markgrafneusiedl, leaving only a corps to fortify the old line from Aspern to Essling. In consequence the Emperor entirely changed his plan. The island of Lobau was first strongly fortified, and then, not one, but numerous bridges were constructed to the mainland on the left bank under cover of the guns. Lower down similar measures were taken. In this way the French troops could effect their pa.s.sage very rapidly and much farther eastward than before, avoid the Aspern-Essling line, and reaching Enzersdorf under protection of their own forts, turn the enemy"s left almost in the act of crossing, and so roll up the left wing of his line, which was strongly posted on high ground behind the Russbach, from Markgrafneusiedl through Parbasdorf toward Wagram, where it was connected with the center. These arrangements were all completed by July first, on which date the Emperor left Schonbrunn for the Lobau. During the fighting at Aspern he had observed the field from the swinging rungs of a rope-ladder fastened to one of the tall trees on the island. This time he brought with him a long step-ladder, one of those used in the palace gardens to trim high shrubs. The Archduke John was now in Presburg; the Archduke Charles had raised his numbers to a hundred and thirty thousand men. On and near the Lobau were a hundred and eighty thousand French soldiers; twenty-two thousand more were behind.
It was the fifth before all the preliminary moves were successfully taken. The pa.s.sage had been safely accomplished during the previous night exactly as had been planned, a feint against Aspern having thrown the Austrians on a false scent. In the morning, therefore, the two lines were arrayed opposite, but somewhat obliquely, to each other, the French right overlapping the Austrian left beyond Enzersdorf as far as Wittau, so as either to prevent the approach of Archduke John or to outflank the Austrian left according to circ.u.mstances. The French center was thus in front of the Austrian left, and Ma.s.sena, with the French left resting on the Danube, was to attack the Austrian center at the village of Gerasdorf, while Bernadotte and Eugene were to throw themselves on Charles"s left, which stretched behind the Russbach from Wagram to Markgrafneusiedl. Napoleon waited for some hours while scouts reconnoitered toward Presburg. Being a.s.sured about five that John had not left that city nor given any signs of moving, he prepared his columns, and about seven in the evening ordered the onset.
Ma.s.sena made a vigorous effort to hold the enemy"s center and right, while Napoleon launched his own center and right against the positions held by his opponent"s left. For some hours there was vigorous fighting, but Charles saw the Emperor"s manuver, and swiftly throwing his reserve from behind Gerasdorf into his left, gained time to call up reinforcements from his right at the Bisamberg. Bernadotte moved slowly, and did not render his force effective at the crucial moment. Napoleon was much incensed by his apparent sluggishness. An attack made at seven against Wagram by Oudinot failed. This hamlet was the key of the Austrian position, forming as it did the angle of their line, and the fighting there was desperate. By nine o"clock the French were thrown back all along, and compelled to resume the positions they had held in the morning. At eleven a last attempt was made by Eugene and Bernadotte on Wagram, but like the other it was b.l.o.o.d.y and useless. At the council-fire that evening the leaders of the French left and center were ordered to move farther to the right, and to concentrate next morning on the positions behind the Russbach. About dawn the change was made, and before sunrise all was ready, the Emperor having pa.s.sed a sleepless night on his tiger-skin behind the bivouac fire in front of his tent.
Battle of Wagram. Positions July 5th 1809.
But Charles did not wait to be attacked. With new courage and added confidence he ordered his right, under Klenau, to follow down the Danube against the enemy"s weakened left, which might thus be turned, while with the break of day his center advanced against Ma.s.sena. For a time the Austrians carried all before them, and Ma.s.sena retreated step by step until it appeared as if the tables would be turned and Napoleon overwhelmed by his own tactics. Both Aspern and Essling were taken, and then, turning north, the united Austrian center and right entirely surrounded the French left and attacked it on the flank. They thought themselves victorious, when unexpectedly the heavy artillery on the Lobau opened fire upon them, and they began to waver. At this crisis the great artillerist brought into action the strong batteries of his own arm which he had so carefully prepared. Lauriston was chosen to carry out the decisive movement, and his splendid conduct not merely secured the victory, but made it overwhelming. According to the most conservative estimate, there were under his command one hundred field-pieces,-sixty from the guard,-and these were supported by cavalry and cuira.s.siers; some estimate the number of guns at four hundred, but this is manifestly a wild exaggeration. As the artillery rolled up and unlimbered, volleys of shot, sh.e.l.l, and grape began to follow in swift succession, and in a short time the enemy"s pursuit was not only stayed, but with the approach of Macdonald"s infantry to form a new flank it was turned into retreat. The Austrians made one gallant stand, but were finally forced back to the foot of the Bisamberg.
Meantime Davout had attacked the left. While he fought he was steadily reinforced, until at one time, about midday, over a third of the army was concentrated under his command. The Austrians opposed to them could not, even with their vantage of high ground, withstand the ever stronger pressure, and slowly rolled back northward in a curve. Eugene captured Wagram, and then turned in that direction to unite with Macdonald, whose division had joined that of Wrede, and had been steadily pushing back the enemy"s line toward the same point. They were supported by Davout and Oudinot. The Austrians on the right were then once more dislodged and compelled to withdraw on the highway to Brunn. It was about two in the afternoon. Davout had been ordered to wait for a signal to make the decisive advance. It was given, and as Oudinot rushed up the heights at Parbasdorf, his comrade appeared from Markgrafneusiedl, driving the enemy before him. A breach in the opposing line was made at once, and the whole Austrian wing, being thus disorganized, hurried back to reform if possible beyond Wagram, cross the Russbach, and join the main army. They were successful. The French right halted just beyond the village which gave its name to the battle. Lasalle, a brilliant light-horse general, was killed in the last charge, and both armies bivouacked for the night. Next morning Charles withdrew toward Znaim, Ma.s.sena, Davout, and Marmont following with the van of Napoleon"s army. Several skirmishes took place between portions of the Austrian rear and various corps of the French van, in which the latter were decidedly checked. Marmont was obliged to a.s.sume the defensive under the walls of Znaim. The Austrian losses at the battle of Wagram were computed at twenty-four thousand, including seven hundred and fifty-three officers. Those of the French were certainly not less, if we include seven thousand who were taken prisoners. They lost, moreover, twelve standards and eleven guns.
In the early hours of July sixth, Charles had despatched an adjutant to Presburg with orders to the Archduke John to march at once and attack the enemy"s rear. The story at first accepted was that the messenger found the bridges over the river March destroyed, and arrived six hours too late for his errand to be successful. There were, however, many at the time who attributed criminal negligence to John, among them his own brother, the commander-in-chief. For a time, by means of court intrigue and persistent misrepresentation, the blame was put, not on John, but on Charles, but eventually the former was found guilty and banished to Styria. Had the latter"s plan succeeded, Napoleon would have had a different task-a task so difficult that the issue of the battle might well have been doubtful, if not disastrous. As it was, the victory was dearly bought, and the Austrians were not demoralized.
On the other hand, in the very hour of victory the French, who had halted to take breath, were thrown into a panic by the appearance of a few Austrian pickets from the Archduke John"s army, then coming up, and thousands of the victorious soldiers fled in wild demoralization toward the Danube. John, whose appearance but a short time earlier would have turned his brother"s defeat into victory, drew back his thirteen thousand men in good order to guard Hungary. As Napoleon himself had been in a dangerous condition of over-confidence before Aspern, so now his soldiery were clearly in the same plight. Self-conceit had made them unreliable. Bernadotte"s corps had displayed something very much like cowardice and mutiny at the last. The army still fought in the main like the perfect machine it was, but the individual men had lost their stern virtue. They believed that victory, plunder, and self-indulgence were the fair compensations of their toils. Ungirt and freed from the restraints of discipline, they gave signs that the petulance, timidity, and unruliness which had been manifested in Poland and Prussia were not diminished.