Wolf Hunt

by Isabel Reid (Translator) Armand Cabasson

  Napoleon ordered the methodical Marshal Davout, commander of the right wing, who had just repulsed the assault by Rosenberg’s Austrians, to attack the enemy left flank. Davout was to take the village of Markgrafneusiedl, situated at the end of the plateau of Wagram. General Oudinot received the order to attack the enemy centre. Multitudes of blue troops surged forward while multicoloured cavalry charged. The French went at it furiously, as did the Austrians. Both front lines were constantly reinforced, devouring regiments at a pace impossible to grasp.

  On the left, the danger was increasing. Boudet’s division, overcome and still retreating, nevertheless tried to stem as much as possible the flow of Austrians along the bank of the Danube. General Boudet had wanted to entrench in Aspern, but Wallmod-en’s hussars had just massacred his gunners and had taken his fourteen cannon. He had therefore been forced to evacuate the village using sabre blows as defence ... Instead of sending reinforcements to his left, Napoleon had chosen to save his reserve infantry to use later to exploit an eventual breach of the Austrian centre. So he improvised another solution: Massena’s IV Corps was going to form a marching column and descend to the southwest to stop Klenau’s VI Corps. The problem was that in manoeuvring in this way, Massena first had to turn his back on the Austrian I Corps under Bellegarde, and the élite Liechtenstein Corps. Then he would expose his flank to Kolowrat’s III Corps before finally arriving level with the villages of Aspern and Essling, near the Danube, to confront Klenau. This five-mile march down the French left flank was likely to be extremely dangerous. To try to protect this manoeuvre Napoleon decided to use the cavalry and the artillery instead of infantry, which was most unusual in this type of movement. Lasalle’s light cavalry, Nansouty’s heavy cavalry and the cavalry of the Guard charged the Austrians intent on immobilising them. General Lauriston, who commanded the artillery of the Guard, was commanded to form a giant battery. He assembled all the pieces of artillery he could find - those of the Guard, of Prince Eugene and of the Bavarians under General de Wrede - and began to place the hundred and twelve cannon in a mile-long line along the north-east of the left flank, replacing Massena’s troops, who were about to depart. Over and above that, Napoleon gave the order to retake the village of Aderklaa. Moli-tor’s division, part of Massena’s IV Corps, succeeded in taking it. But it was clear that they would not keep it because the Austrians would try everything to recapture it. Aderklaa must hold out as long as possible in order to occupy the efforts of the troops of Bellegarde and Liechtenstein. In fact that village would serve as a lightning conductor to protect the back of IV Corps.

  The majority of Massena’s corps therefore formed into a column.

  Then the superior officers ordered, ‘Column, head left.’ This enormous formation of twenty thousand men began to march south-westwards. The new recruits were worried.

  Margont was at the head of his company, sword in hand.

  ‘Where are we going?’ wondered Saber aloud. ‘And if we leave, who will make up the north of the left wing?’

  In the ranks, the infantry exchanged appalled looks or questioned the non-commissioned officers.

  ‘Are we retreating, Sergeant?’ a conscript asked Lefine.

  ‘Everything’s all right! Everything’s going to plan,’ Lefine assured him.

  An Austrian battery thundered in the south, near the Danube. ‘We’re encircled!’ yelled a fusilier.

  ‘The little Corsican is defeated!’ another one yelled louder.

  The order of the companies changed again. The infantry speeded up; entire lines collided ... Sergeants and captains hurried to restore cohesion. Massena’s giant column resembled a house of cards on the point of collapse.

  Margont trampled the fields of golden corn, hiding his anxiety. There were Austrians massed at his back, all along his right and facing him, in the south-west. He could see enemy columns all around like giant white worms rampaging across the plain towards them to devour them. The Austrian right wing was vastly superior in number to them and they had practically not fought at all.

  ‘Slow down, Corporal Pelain!’ he exclaimed for the fifth time, for his company had a tendency to catch up the company in front.

  In reply came overhead whistles, and explosions rang out on all sides. A shell exploded in the middle of his company, throwing broken bodies into the air. The round shot plundered the rows of soldiers, like black bowling balls knocking over a line of skittles ... The survivors, spattered with human debris, stepped over mutilated bodies as they battled through the palls of smoke. Incandescent flashes ignited fires and these infernos burnt alive the wounded, unable to move. In spite of the unbearable sights around them, the formation had to stay together at all costs to intimidate the Austrians and keep them at bay.

  Margont, ashen-faced, shouted: ‘Close ranks! Keep in line! Realign yourselves!’

  Hundreds of other voices repeated the same instructions all along the column, in an endless echo interrupted by explosions and by the cries of the wounded.

  The giant battery was not yet ready to support Massena’s IV Corps. The gun carriages were hurrying to their positions where the artillery busied themselves like ants around their guns to ready them for action. There was one cannon every twenty paces, over a mile stretch. Nothing like it had ever been seen before.

  Massena decided to launch his light cavalry against the enemy, to prevent them from attacking his flank and finishing off the troops decimated by the round shot. To charge an enemy army aligned in battle order was not what hussars and mounted chasseurs usually did. Normally they were used for reconnaissance, for harassing the enemy and pursuing them when they were in retreat. But Massena only had Lasalle and Marulaz’s light cavalry at his disposal. These two thousand combatants launched themselves at the sixteen thousand men of Kolowrat’s III Corps.

  The cavalry set off in a cacophony of hammering hoofs, whinnying and trumpet blasts. The 8th Hussars were at their head, riding in sparse groups. Relmyer was amongst the first. Pagin and Major Batichut were slightly ahead of him, hard on the heels of General Lasalle and his escort. The hussars were yelling, their faces whipped by the wind, brandishing their sabres, drunk with the excitement of their speed and the madness of war. They saw the enemy masses rapidly grow larger. In front of their eyes, regiments hastily formed square, lines of Austrian or Hungarian fusiliers took aim, battalions of the Landwehr or of Volunteers organised themselves as well as they could, artillerymen reloaded their cannon, uhlans, dressed all in green, before charging the assailants with their lances ... Relmyer bent low over his horse’s mane, his sabre in his hand. Pagin, sitting straight in his saddle, waved his sword, shouting, ‘Hurrah! Hurrah!’ The Austrians disappeared in the white smoke of their gunfire. A ball to the chest felled Pagin in the full flush of youth. Hussars were slipping out of their stirrups, collapsing with their mounts, shot to pieces by balls or canister shot ... The cavalry fought the Austrians. They sabred the artillerymen, massacred the isolated infantry, crushed the regiments ... Relmyer threw himself on a group of soldiers in grey coats. Suddenly he jumped. Here! Right here! He had just spotted him. It was him! The man he was hunting! Relmyer began to sabre with fury to clear a passage as far as his tormentor. But it seemed to him that the face kept moving, disappearing only to reappear elsewhere, like a reflection projected onto face after face in that crowd. Relmyer struck, slashed, struck ... Forms collapsed, soldiers threw themselves to the ground to avoid his blade, many fled and were killed by other hussars ...The formation finally broke up. It was a battalion of the Landwehr from Prague and not the Viennese Volunteers at all.

  Finally the cavalry yielded to the superior number of their enemies and left at the gallop under a hail of Austrian bullets and round shot, taking away with them two cannon stolen from the enemy. During this time the Great Battery had finished positioning itself.

  The one hundred and twelve cannon opened fire on Kolowrat’s III Corps, generating a thunderous roar loud enough to drive the soldiers mad. The round shot caused
chaos amongst the Austrians, flattening their ranks, destroying the lines, cutting the columns to pieces, and exploding the artillery’s ammunition wagons ... Kolowrat, stopped in his tracks by this barrage of fire, pulled his troops back to put them out of reach of the canister. He placed all his cannon in position and ordered a counterbarrage of fire. Whilst the two artilleries fought a titanic duel, pulverising each other cannon for cannon, Massena’s IV Corps pursued its course under that hail of projectiles. To encourage his soldiers, Massena placed the musicians of one of the regiments at the head of the column to belt out military marches, the drum major, in his lace-trimmed coat, twirling his silver-topped cane ...

  The attack on the Austrian centre was starting to turn in favour of the French. In spite of the hand-to-hand conflict and the counterattacks, Charles did not succeed in checking the French advance. Yet the French left was still in danger. To the north-west the din of

  the Great Battery was gradually diminishing. Austrian fire was decimating the artillerymen. Napoleon decided to hide this weakness, otherwise the Archduke would have immediately ordered his troops to attack that part of the front. He therefore called on the volunteer soldiers in the ranks of his Guard, who arrived to mingle with the surviving gunners. They manoeuvred the guns in the midst of the bodies of the artillerymen they were replacing and whom they soon joined one after the other, before being replaced themselves. The Great Battery increased the rhythm of its firing and the Austrians did not realise how much the wing was breaking up under their rain of balls.

  To the south-west the situation was veering towards disaster. The poor Boudet Division was still having to withdraw and now found itself level with Lobau. The advance of Klenau’s VI Corps seemed irresistible and the Austrians were nearly at the bridges, the only escape route available to the French.

  Faced with the danger of the Austrians cutting off the bridges, Napoleon was forced to change his plans. Instead of keeping all his reserve troops to send in at the end against the Austrian centre, he took a large part of them — the Italian army of Prince Eugene - and directed it towards the north of the left wing. This change of plan had several consequences. It supported the left flank but also meant that not all French efforts were concentrated on the single objective of attacking the enemy centre. So the eventual breakthrough would not have the devastating results hoped for by the Emperor.

  General Macdonald, serving under Prince Eugene, was assigned to lead this manoeuvre. Adhering to his convictions, he still wore his old republican general’s uniform, which Napoleon did not appreciate. He formed a square, each monumental side stretching for half a mile. The survivors of a large part of the Italian army, that is to say eight thousand men, stood closely packed together to form the edges, while Macdonald and his general staff were placed in the clear space in the centre. This square began to march in the direction of Kolowrat’s III Corps and the élite Liechtenstein Corps. Macdonald had chosen this unusual formation to protect himself

  from the cavalry and because his troops included an enormous number of conscripts. They were too inexperienced to be able to advance in line or to change formation under fire. The formation was, however, inconvenient. It moved slowly and as the soldiers found themselves massed in a restricted space, Austrian fire power converged on them, causing carnage. As the giant square advanced, it shed, leaving behind a carpet of wounded and dead. It nevertheless succeeded in resisting attack by Scharzenberg’s dragoons, helped by the support of Nansouty’s four thousand cuirassiers and carabineers, and by the cavalry of the Guard, which launched repeated charges on the enemy flanks. The cavalry fell like rain under the canister shot and the bullets before being struck by Hesse-Hombourg’s cuirassiers. The mounted chasseurs of the Guard harried the enemy infantry, which held firm, while the Polish Light Horse attacked Scharzenberg’s uhlans. They seized the uhlans’ lances, their favourite weapon, and improvised as lancers. Part of the Great Battery also helped Macdonald with their fire. Finally the Austrians began to retreat but continued to fight.

  In less than an hour, Macdonald’s giant square had ceased to exist. Only one thousand five hundred of its soldiers survived unhurt. But the Austrians, shaken and worried about their centre and left flank, did not succeed in exploiting this success.

  Napoleon then launched his last reserves, including General Wrede’s Bavarians dressed up as if for a parade, the Young Guard and Marmot’s XI Corps, against the centre and the north of the Austrian right flank. He kept with him only two regiments of his Old Guard. Archduke Charles, in contrast, had already used all his available soldiers.

  After two hours of marching interspersed with fighting, Massena’s column finally arrived to face the troops of Klenau’s VI Corps.

  Three miles away, on the other side of the Danube, the Viennese were watching the battle perched on the roofs of houses, on clock towers, on ramparts and neighbouring hills. Thousands of plumes of smoke smothered the plain and the plateau of Wagram, and filled the sky. Half the world seemed to be burning. But the spectators could make out Klenau’s regiments, the closest to them,

  and they cheered the line of white soldiers flowing along the river-bank and increasingly pushing back the astonishingly few blue troops. The flow of white was ravaging the back of the French army and playing a significant role in the outcome of the battle. Then Massena’s column appeared, sliding slowly through the fields of corn. To the Viennese it looked like a monster, a great dark blue Leviathan interspersed with the shimmering reflections of bayonets and sabres. Klenau’s forces were made up of white blotches like enormous snowflakes, which moved, changed shape, regrouped or were absorbed by a village. Looked at from that distance, the war seemed unreal. The blood did not reach as far as the spectators.

  The Viennese encouraged their troops by waving their hats and white favours. Their cries could not be heard above the tumult of combat. Luise’s loyalties were divided. As much as she rejoiced at the advance of the Austrians she also felt they were tearing away a part of her. She did not know whether Relmyer and Margont were among the French marching on Aspern and Essling and if they might die at any minute as she watched from afar.

  Massena’s giant column split into several. These branches divided up in their turn and burgeoned into regiments in battle order. Massena directed part of his forces to the west against Hohenfeld and Kottu I insky’s divisions. The Boudet Division, having withdrawn as far as the bridges, received Marulaz’s light cavalry as reinforcement. It was to retake Aspern. General Legrand meanwhile had been ordered to take Essling where Vincent’s division had retrenched. The cannon on Lobau would back up these assaults.

  Margont’s company, a hundred soldiers strong, was arranged in a column three soldiers wide. The seventeen other companies of the 18th replicated this geometric pattern, making up blocks that together made one column of attack. The 26th Light Brigade, which was ahead of the 18th, was arranged in the same manner. This hammerhead was preparing to strike the village of Essling, swarming with Austrians.

  ‘What’s happening? Where are we? Are we losing or are we

  winning?’ demanded a soldier, his face as white as a sheet. Piquebois stopped in front of him.

  ‘Well, I’ve just been discussing at length with the Emperor. He said: “My dear Piquebois, let me tell you my secret plans for the battle: tell our good soldiers to fire on anything that moves.’”

  The ruins of Essling appeared intermittently through the smoke of the cannon fire. The facades of the houses were punctured by holes made by round shot, Austrians were keeping guard on the collapsed roofs ... There were also entrenchments. Lefine began to laugh. It was unbelievable. A month and a half earlier, he had almost been killed twice in the village of Aspern, not a mile from here. Now after six weeks of encounters, emotions and pleasure punctuated by some moments of fear, here he was again. It was a case of deja vu. As if the gods or Destiny had said to themselves: ‘What? They didn’t all die at the Battle of Essling, these little humans? We must correct that oversight: we
’ll send them back there and this time we’ll kill every last one of them.’ Lefine was often ironic, but he was forced to admit that he had nothing on what life could offer in that respect.

  With Saber, fear induced hatred. He was pacing up and down along the ranks of the company.

  ‘Remember how we marched under the bullets. It’s payback time: we’ll make them dance Napoleon-style!’

  He went up to Margont, who was watching the crowd of Viennese. The smoky atmosphere made it appear that they belonged to another world, floating in the clouds. Saber pointed in their direction.

  ‘How I would love to have some cannon to point at them.

  We would just need them to come a little closer...’

  The next day he would repent of having uttered such a barbarous threat, but at that moment he meant what he said. War had changed him into a monster.

  ‘Why don’t you address our soldiers, to motivate them?’ Margont suggested, to divert his attention.

  Saber liked nothing better. He launched into his tenth harangue of the day, evoking heroism and the prospect of promotion.

  ‘Our only limitation is ourselves!’ he cried.

  Margont, who was barely listening, suddenly looked at his friend. But Saber had nothing more to say and concluded his speech. All his speeches ended in the same way: ‘What does our Emperor say about us?’ he bellowed.

  As always, dozens of men replied enthusiastically: “‘Brave men of the 18th, I know you: the enemy will not be able to withstand your attack.”’

  This phrase, endlessly repeated, bolstered them like a mantra.

  The village of Essling marked the most advanced point of the march of the Austrian army into the back of the French army. It was the key position in the confrontation between Massena and Klenau. The 26th Light Division and the 18th of the Line began to make their move to the sound of beating drums.

  ‘Forwards! Forwards!’ cried the officers.