Masters of the Battlefield

by Davis, Paul K.

  Napoleon’s break-up of the Holy Roman Empire cost Emperor Francis II not only his title (he became Francis I, emperor of Austria-Hungary) but also territory—neither of which made for a passive rival. In the wake of these embarrassments, Archduke Charles rose to favor once again in Vienna and was given the job of reforming the army. Although he reached his position of field marshal because of his birth, he was indeed a talented commander with a number of victories against French forces in the Low Countries and Italy. He had spoken against the war in 1805, a position that was proven justified and resulted in renewed confidence in his judgment in 1806. Dedicated as Charles was to reform, however, he was still not the visionary that Napoleon was. He reorganized the army on the combined arms corps d’armee system, and was able to expand it to 279,000 men, primarily by instituting an expanded Landwehr (national guard) for garrison and replacements, as they could not be brought up to traditional training standards without the long-service commitment. The corps system did not speed the army’s marches, however, as Charles kept the same supply system in place, in order to not alienate the population through which they passed. He also attempted to simplify the field manuals and make military service somewhat more attractive by shortening enlistments and reducing the abusive discipline. Difficult as it was to make a multinational force loyal to a single entity, Charles focused on creating regimental elan in order to maintain morale and discipline.65

  Unfortunately, the revised manual was in some ways more complicated, and the multinational nature of the Austro-Hungarian army made any sort of motivation short of intense discipline limited in its effectiveness. The light infantry and light cavalry talents of some of the ethnic minorities, such as the Croatian Pandours of the Silesian and Seven Years’ Wars, were still viewed as untrustworthy by the bulk of the Austrian officer corps. The primary change for the infantry was experimenting with the use of the third line as skirmishers, but it was not widely employed. For the cavalry the main problem was a dearth of mounts. Charles had learned from the French, particularly in the nature of artillery deployment, which he reorganized into an independent arm as in the French army. Artillery had traditionally been an Austrian strong point, and he determined to make it so again.66

  As the Austrians were improving, the French army was deteriorating. Although forces garrisoned Italy and Germany in relatively strong numbers, the bulk of the army’s focus was the campaign in the Iberian Peninsula. Wide commitments coupled with increasing casualties meant Napoleon had to strain for manpower, which he found by calling up draftees earlier than scheduled and by relying on allied forces. Napoleon’s preparations gave him 170,000 troops in southern Germany, with 50,000 of the German troops from the Confederation of the Rhine. However, almost half of his growing army were recent conscripts.67 In order to give the recruits more confidence, since long-term training was now impractical, artillery firepower was increased. Napoleon also began to depend more on mass than maneuver: although he would never abandon the concept of speed in the attack, he became less subtle in his views, aiming for mass at the weak point early in the battle, eschewing his traditional maneuvering. This gave the new troops more confidence but limited flexibility.68

  The commander in Germany was Chief of Staff Marshal Louis-Alexandre Berthier, a man much better at administration than command. Napoleon was relying not only on client states for men and materiel but also on Czar Alexander to assist him if the Austrians got out of hand. After the Battle of Freidland in 1807 the Russians had signed the Peace of Tilsit, which officially made them allies of France. Alexander, however, had let the Austrians know that he would not intervene, regardless of his promises to Napoleon. One of the primary questions was whether the confederation troops would rally to their new master who had freed them from Austria, or fight him in order to gain independence from any outsider. Archduke Charles was hoping for the latter.

  The Battle of Wagram

  THE NEWLY REORGANIZED AUSTRIAN ARMY consisted of eleven corps. One was detailed to Poland to suppress any action by the pro-French regime there. Two were sent to Italy to keep busy Napoleon’s stepson, Eugene, and Franco-Italian forces poised to march through Dalmatia. The remaining eight corps were to invade Bavaria in order to provoke a war of liberation. The original plan called for six corps to march from Bohemia into Bavaria while the remaining two corps marched parallel, south of the Danube. Napoleon soon revised his own plan, however, to send the bulk of his army up the Danube on the south bank in order to better screen any possible French move toward Vienna.

  The invasion started on 9 April 1809, rather sooner than Napoleon thought the Austrians could take the field. He was still in Paris when the semaphore system alerted him to the attack. Sending messages ahead to Berthier, Napoleon was not far behind. Berthier was overwhelmed and clearly anxious to have his emperor take charge when he arrived on the 17th at Donauwörth. Napoleon immediately began moving his corps where needed to stop the Austrians and then begin pushing them back. Most of the French thrust was south of the Danube, finally pushing Charles to Ratisbon (Regensburg). The Austrian rear guard held the French at bay long enough for Charles to evacuate most of his troops to the north bank of the Danube and destroy the bridges behind him. Although Napoleon later claimed to be proud of winning his next five engagements between Ratisbon and the Iser River, they were not conclusive; Charles managed to escape with the bulk of his forces intact.69 He withdrew into Bohemia, leaving the path to Vienna virtually unobstructed. Napoleon chased a force under General Johan Hiller to the city and entered on 10 May, but the Austrians had abandoned the city (except for the citadel) and retreated across the Danube, again destroying the bridges behind them.

  Napoleon’s army was now reduced to 82,000, while the Austrians across the river had 115,000. Napoleon refused to wait for more men to arrive. He had been slowed somewhat in his advance by spring rains, which now were flooding the Danube—something for which he was unprepared, having fought his previous campaigns here later in the year. While he considered what materials were necessary to cross the river, Hiller joined with Archduke Charles, who had arrived from Bohemia. Napoleon hoped to cross the river quickly and prevent the enemy from joining forces, but the destroyed bridges kept him from doing so. At this point, the flooded Danube was as much as 2,000 yards wide, so gaining sufficient material to build new bridges took four days.70 Just to the east of Vienna the Danube is filled with a multitude of islands, the largest of which is Lobau. Marshal Davout’s corps managed to build pontoon bridges to a few small islands from the south bank of the Danube over to Lobau, from which a fairly narrow strait from the north bank of the island led to a landing between the villages of Aspern (to the west) and Essling about two miles to the east.

  Across this single bridge Napoleon pushed 30,000 men on 21 May, followed by another 25,000 the following day. The Austrians had them cornered with 100,000 men. Napoleon’s orders to his men were uncharacteristically vague: cross the river and engage the enemy. Seizure and fortification of the two villages were vital to securing a bridgehead, but he gave no such directives. Dodge notes, “At other battles—Austerlitz, Jena, Friedland—he had been more careful. Or had he, as many contemporaries allege, been spoiled by success so far as to believe that he could not fail in any undertaking, that no enemy could stand against him, whether he took proper precautions or not?”71 The two marshals in combat were Lannes at Essling and Massena at Aspern; though they were outnumbered almost two to one and outgunned three to two, the French at times seemed on the verge of victory in a battle that raged back and forth for two days with both villages changing hands multiple times.

  Ultimately, Austrian stubbornness and the flooded Danube made the difference. Not only did rising waters weaken and at times break the pontoon bridge, but the Austrians sent massive logs and ultimately a burning, floating flour mill that broke the bridge for good just as reinforcements were preparing to cross and a major French assault on the Austrian center showed signs of possible success. Fatigued and low on ammunitio
n, the French could not prevail, and Napoleon ordered a withdrawal to Lobau Island at dusk on the 22nd. Casualties on both sides numbered more than 20,000 (including Marshal Lannes, dead of wounds), but the Austrians claimed a victory by bloodying Napoleon’s nose.

  Napoleon withdrew into seclusion in Schönbrunn Palace for a day and a half, before emerging with renewed vigor. He needed a victory to erase the possible effects of Aspern-Essling, just as Friedland had negated the setback at Eylau. One thing certainly favored him in the wake of the battle: he still owned Vienna and Lobau Island. He could thus maintain his army as more men arrived through the month of June, and he could establish a strong base on the island and prepare multiple bridges for a return match. He also learned that the Austrian expeditions to Italy and Poland had both met with failure, and he could draw on Eugene’s forces to cover his right flank. Viceroy Eugene’s force had defeated Archduke John at Raab (to the southeast, halfway to Budapest) in mid-June, slowing an already slow Austrian reinforcement. Napoleon also benefited from Charles’s inactivity, as the archduke’s primary goal was to use his success and his improved strategic position to enter negotiations on favorable terms. Unfortunately, that was unacceptable to his brother and the war faction in the government, and their rejection of his plans seems to have taken a heavy psychological toll. Charles withdrew into himself for several weeks, in spite of the fact that he commanded a force currently larger and more strongly positioned than the French.72 After all these years too many Austrians still seemed to be underestimating Napoleon.

  By the end of June 1809, Charles had less than 150,000 troops, which included the untrained militia recruits, as Emperor Francis kept insisting that Charles detach men to aid the failing Polish expedition. Additionally, Austrian cavalry and artillery units were lacking sufficient horses. The Austrians did just about everything they could to waste their success in May. Napoleon, on the other hand, had been reinforced to almost 190,000 men, and he had been busy occupying a number of other islands near Lobau. From here he began both openly and secretly to build bridges in order to keep the Austrians guessing as to where a crossing might take place. Weigley writes, “In fact, he decided that there was not much chance to engender further mystification or to achieve any real measure of surprise in crossing his big army, so on the night of 3–4 July he began pulling additional troops into Lobau. On the stormy night of July 5 Massena’s IV Corps floated another pontoon bridge and began filing out of Lobau, not directly into the old Aspern bridgehead, where Charles expected the French, but farther east.”73

  Although Charles had a corps stretched from Aspern–Essling–Gross Enzersdorf dug in facing the river, the bulk of the army was drawn up in a strong defensive position well away from the Danube. Charles deployed on the Russbach Plateau to the northeast of Aspern and Essling. The plateau’s rectangular situation presented a front parallel to the Danube; along its northwestern and southwestern edges ran a stream called the Russbach. The banks of the stream were both steep and tree lined, presenting a natural obstacle to any assault. Further, the approach to the stream from the west consisted of some 100 yards of boggy ground. On the opposite western bank was a cliff, 30–60 feet in height, known as the Wagram; on its western corner stood the village of Deutsch-Wagram. The ground further west rose gently toward the major height on the battlefield, the Bisamberg, which anchored the Austrian right.74 Three corps were on the escarpment overlooking the stream and the large Marchfeld plain. Two more corps were behind and to the west of the Bisamberg, and a cavalry corps stretched out over the three miles between the two. Nothing was there to stop any French river crossing away from Aspern.

  The crossing began after dark on the night of 4-5 July and proceeded without a hitch. The feint near Aspern, coupled with the thunderstorm that struck late in the afternoon, made for a completely unopposed operation. The French engineers had outdone themselves in preparation, not only constructing numerous bridges for quick deployment but also driving piles into the Danube riverbed to stop any floating bridge busters like the ones that had ruined the operation in May. Three corps under Massena, Oudinot, and Davout were deploying for battle by dawn on the 5th. In his work on Napoleon’s decline, Alistair Horne describes the operation: “To have moved the best part of 100,000 men in the dark, across two sets of pontoon bridges … in close proximity to a supposedly vigilant enemy, all with virtually no loss of life, was a feat that would have been difficult to rival even in the Second World War, with all its modern mechanization and communications. It showed Napoleon, his commanders and above all General Bertrand and his Corps of Engineers at their very best.”75

  The men crossed due east from Lobau to the road running southeast from Gross Enzersdorf, the anchor of the Austrian forward position’s left flank. With these three corps deployed by noon and more troops crossing behind them, Napoleon set the attack into motion. Massena struck the Gross Enzersdorf and immediately began pushing the Austrians toward the Bisamberg. Oudinot and Davout made for the Russbach to face the far left of the main Austrian line; Eugene and Bernadotte followed them and deployed to their left, four French corps facing three Austrian corps across the Russbach. J. B. Bessiers established a reserve in the center near Raasdorf. By late afternoon on the 5th little fighting had taken place and the French had deployed far forward. Massena’s corps stretched more than two miles from the Danube to Sussenbrun, facing Marshals Johann von Klenau and John Charles Kollowrat in front of the Bisamberg. Charles assumed that the deployment phase was sufficient for the day’s activities, but Napoleon was never one to waste daylight. At 7:00 he ordered his men forward in a probing attack, as he could not determine the strength of the Austrians on the Wagram heights. He sent his four corps forward toward the Russbach along the Deutsch Wagram–Markgrafneusiedl line.76 Although the French made some initial gains, the attack was too uncoordinated. Further, allied Italian and Saxon troops, both dressed in white uniforms, exchanged fire while mistaking each other for Austrians. At dark both sides settled in, but the French could count their rapid advance across the Marchfeld to be a major success.

  Napoleon’s next move was to start one of his traditional attacks sur les derrières. With Eugene and Bernadotte holding the Austrians around the village of Deutsche Wagram, Oudinot would press forward while Davout would swing around the Austrian left at Markgrafneusiedl, gain the plateau, and begin rolling up the Austrians’ flank. Once they began to break, then Jacques MacDonald would lead elements of Eugene’s Army of Italy to the village of Wagram to break the Austrian center. Not knowing just where Archduke John’s 13,000-man force might be, Napoleon positioned light cavalry forces to the east to serve as both an advance warning and a bar to John’s troops should they appear. In order to cover MacDonald’s flank, Massena was ordered to send a division to the rear to cover the Aspern River crossing while moving the rest of his force to the right, concentrating between Aderklaa and Sussenbrunn. Napoleon’s object was not to separate the two wings of the army in front of him, but to drive between Charles’s army and John’s.

  After weeks of inactivity, Charles wasted no time preparing a counter to the French advance. He assured his brother the emperor, stationed on the Bisamberg, that all was going according to plan. Little did Napoleon know that his repositioning of forces was playing directly into the Austrian plan. Knowing that the weakest point of his line was the center, held only by reserve cavalry, Charles wanted to bring his forces together with an advance along his entire line. He had to attack first, join his forces in the center, and force the French back into a tight fishhook formation in which they would be unable to maneuver.77 From the Bisamberg, Klenau was to advance straight ahead parallel to the Danube with the goal of securing the bridges and threatening the French left flank and rear. Kollowrat would parallel him with an attack on Süssenbrunn while Prince John Lichtenstein would lead the grenadiers and cavalry in an attack on Aderklaa, the pivot point of the French position. Austrian artillery on the plateau would pound the French center while Charles led H.J.J. Belle
garde’s corps forward on Aderklaa from the northeast. Karl Rosenberg would strike Davout’s flank, aiming for a double envelopment. Clemens Hohenzollern would remain on the high ground in reserve.

  Charles had a good plan but for two problems. First, he expected his brother John to arrive in the nick of time to finish off the French with an attack on their right rear; John, however, was too far away to be of any assistance, though neither Charles nor Napoleon knew his position. Second, the Austrian army stretched over an eleven-mile front, making communication and coordination difficult, especially in the dark or in the midst of the smoke-enshrouded battlefield after the sun came up. Napoleon therefore had the advantage of manpower and interior lines.

  As dawn was about to break at 4:00, Rosenberg began the second day’s fighting. He advanced on Davout out of Markgrafneusiedl and caught the French by surprise. Upon hearing the gunfire, Napoleon assumed Archduke John had arrived. He gathered the Guard and marched to Davout’s support, only to find the talented marshal had stopped the Austrian attack and begun his advance as originally ordered. Relieved to learn that the situation was in hand, he was then alerted to the Austrian advance in the center. Here all could have collapsed: Bernadotte had abandoned Aderklaa without orders in order to facilitate the link between Massena on his left and Eugene on his right. He also removed his men from the artillery fire coming from the heights. Napoleon ordered Bernadotte and Massena to retake the village at all costs. They did, but Charles led a counterattack that drove Bernadotte’s Saxons into a panic. Bernadotte, who the evening before had loudly criticized Napoleon’s battle plan, found himself relieved of his command in the middle of the battle.

  By 9:00 Aderklaa was back in French hands, but just then Napoleon learned that the Austrians had begun their advance along the Danube. The Austrian 3rd and 6th Corps had at last advanced from the Bisamberg, though they were four hours late. Still, Massena was busy with the Aderklaa and would be hard pressed to respond.78 The Austrian columns easily pushed through to Aspern and drove back the division covering the bridge before coming under fire from French artillery on Lobau. Klenau then faced his army left and marched north toward Breitenlee. Kolowrat’s force was just then approaching Süssenbrun. Napoleon turned his attention to the latest threat, aided by a less than rapid Austrian seizure of the opportunity to strike from the rear. Luckily for Napoleon, Eugene had seen the threat posed by the Aderklaa fighting and had begun to turn his men in that direction, ordering Marshal MacDonald to face his corps and artillery to the west rather than the north. With that sector being strengthened, Napoleon pulled Massena’s force out of the line to face to the south and recover the river crossings. As Chandler says, “This was a daring expedient, but the crisis called for desperate measures, and Napoleon had every confidence in the skill of perhaps his ablest subordinate.”79