by Alan Schom
King Louis’s mental problems had, if anything, increased over the years, however, one such manifestation being his inability to decide where to establish his residence. In the past two years alone, from December 1807 to December 1809, he had moved from Utrecht to the castle of St.-Leu, then to the south, then to Aix-la-Chapelle, then to Loo, and next to Amsterdam. Each move involved the availability of a large palace for his personal advisers, staff, and servants, with adequate quarters for his ministries and the diplomatic community. Louis’s peripatetic existence left the state bureaucracies and numerous embassies in a state of perpetual upheaval, to the point that on April 9 the diplomatic community took the unprecedented step of petitioning the king to stop moving. But no sooner had he heeded their request and settled in Amsterdam than one month later he moved back to Utrecht. Finally he found an estate in Haarlem that pleased him. Alas, it belonged to Holland’s most prestigious banker, Hope. But Louis insisted, and Hope had to leave his ancestral home. After a few weeks there, Louis moved out, never to return.
What is more, Louis the hypochondriac was constantly out of the country taking the waters at one spa after another. Next he proclaimed himself to be neither Corsican nor French but Dutch, and demanded that the clothing, furniture, and language round him be Dutch. Louis even insisted on speaking Dutch — however badly. He became so Dutch that he even sent away most of the French advisers with whom he had arrived, or whom Napoleon had assigned to him. He even forced all Frenchmen remaining in Holland to renounce their French citizenship. Indeed, only one French national defied him — his wife, Queen Hortense. She remained adamant for once, resulting in colossal quarrels and painful scenes for months to come.
Then, when on April 24, 1808, their son, Charles-Louis-Napoléon, was born in Paris (where Hortense was seeking refuge from her demented husband), more serious battles arose over custody of the baby. Louis demanded that his son be sent to him immediately in Holland. Hortense, strengthened by her citizenship victory, and by the knowledge that Louis could not touch her in Napoleon’s capital, refused even to answer the letter, although Louis asked her only “to consent to separate yourself from him for several months.” (She knew what “several months” meant.) Nevertheless, this did not prevent good King Louis from announcing in all the Dutch newspapers the forthcoming arrival of his son. Angered, Louis addressed her again and again, but no replies were forthcoming from Hortense. Finally Louis sent a formal demand, which she formally refused. Beside himself, Louis next asked Napoleon to intercede directly and send him the boy. This time it was Napoleon who declined to reply. He was surrounded by enemies, Louis proclaimed, and this was yet another instance of this pervasive plot!
In theory Louis obliged Napoleon regarding the halting of all commerce with England, shipping dropping dramatically from 1,450 seagoing vessels reaching Amsterdam in 1807 to just 361 in 1808, although somehow British goods nonetheless seemed to be plentiful in Holland. Louis even sent (albeit reluctantly) three thousand Dutch soldiers to join Bonaparte in Spain. But when on August 8, 1808, Napoleon suddenly informed Louis that he intended to annex two Dutch provinces, Brant and Zeeland, Louis categorically refused. Napoleon then threatened to cut off all colonial commodities imported via Holland, which would have hurt Dutch commerce severely. The Franco-Dutch war of 1808 continued apace.
Yet despite these continuous fraternal quarrels and misunderstandings, and Napoleon’s obvious intent of chipping away at brother Louis’s miniature kingdom, Louis deeply loved Napoleon, though such moments of conflicting sentiment could shift on the spur of the moment, gyrating from love to hate, the old battle resuming like something out of a Greek tragedy. When, for instance, Napoleon returned to Spain, Louis, receiving all sorts of disquieting news about French setbacks and enormous casualties in the peninsula, wrote to his former army friend Lavalette: “I am most anxious about this wretched Spanish business. Do send me news by my courier as quickly as possible...It is not the progress of the war that concerns me, but my brother’s welfare! Tell me, or let me know, I beg of you, all you can to reassure me about my brother’s health.”
Nevertheless acrimonious relations began again on Napoleon’s return to France in January 1809. First Napoleon informed Louis that he was supporting Hortense’s request not to send their son (now a year old) to Holland for a “visit.” (He had obviously seen some of Louis’s threatening letters to Hortense.) This Napoleon compounded on March 3 by suddenly decreeing that he was adopting Hortense’s son, bestowing on the infant the title grand duke of Berg and Cleves (Murat’s former title and state). Charles-Louis-Napoléon would thus remain with his uncle, to be educated by him, the emperor further making him heir to the French imperial throne. Perhaps even more curiously, Louis just as suddenly acquiesced without further ado. With the queen of Holland now permanently out of her kingdom, the king’s son publicly removed from his custody, and reverberations of the new war brewing in central Europe already reaching every country of the Continent, conditions for even greater conflict between the two brothers Bonaparte seemed ripe.
Despite such minor distractions as Spain, Holland, and the disruptions in Westphalia, not to mention acts of rebellion elsewhere in Germany, in April 1809 Napoleon had to concentrate on the more immediate Austrian military threat and the launching of his second Danube campaign.
On April 19, two days after reaching Chief of Staff Berthier at Donauwörth, Napoleon unleashed his forces in a series of five battles over four days, at Thann, Abensberg, Landshut, Eckmühl, and Ratisbon. “We are fighting to give her [Bavaria] independence and to return to Germany her national honor,” he informed his troops. “Within a month we will be in Vienna.”
It was not quite that simple, however. Napoleon was confident of crushing the Austrians, while the Austrian commander in chief, Archduke Karl, was equally assured of destroying the French war machine once and for all. Both sides were to be disappointed now, especially the Austrians defending their very homes. Archduke Karl had hoped the Bavarians, seeing the deployment of such an impressive force of men and guns in the newly reorganized Austrian army, would join them in the struggle to overthrow the French overlords. King Max Josef, however, had remained loyal to Napoleon. Marshal Berthier, who had been in command prior to Napoleon’s arrival at Donauwörth, had not followed his orders, and troops were not properly deployed when hostilities began. Some of Bonaparte’s far-flung army corps had rushed considerable distances to reach the approaches of Ratisbon, including Davout’s III corps, which had come from the Erfurt area, Oudinot’s II Corps from Augsburg, and Masséna’s newly formed IV Corps from Strasbourg. Other units had had to remain behind to keep an eye on their French allies, just in case.
During the initial clashes Napoleon could muster only 79,000 men (including part or all of the corps of Davout, Lannes, and Lefebvre) with whom to cross swords with Archduke Karl’s imposing 110,000 men, well armed and in place, to be completed shortly by the arrival of Kollowrat’s and Bellegarde’s corps, adding 48,000 men to the Austrian total.
Despite the inferiority of forces, the French moved up along the southern bank of the Danube toward Thann, Abensberg, and Eckmühl, Napoleon confident that he had the enemy where he wanted them. He was pleased with the results of the initial clashes, as he informed Marshal Davout from Bachl on 21 April. “Much has occurred in just a few days. All the Austrian forces in your area are routed...On all sides, cannon, colors, and prisoners have been taken. It is a second Jena.” Even the next day Napoleon had jauntily informed Davout, “I have decided to exterminate Prince Charles’s [Archduke Karl’s] army today, or tomorrow at the very latest.” Then, suddenly, things had begun to go very wrong indeed. Karl had in mid-battle suddenly retreated successfully to nearby Ratisbon, and due to the exhaustion of French troops after a long day’s fight, there had been no significant French force with which to pursue them.
Having earlier been ordered to seize the critically situated fortified city of Ratisbon, Davout now discovered that on the twentieth the very forc
e he had left behind there had been defeated, yielding the city’s stout walls and the strategic bridgehead to Archduke Karl’s army. This had altered the whole situation, as the Austrians began to escape to the north side of the Danube, ultimately making for the mountains of Bohemia.
Early on April 23, when Napoleon finally started his pursuit, he found himself stopped in his tracks by a mere six thousand troops manning Ratisbon’s stalwart fortifications, the very walls one of Davout’s detached regiments had earlier held but lost. Napoleon immediately ordered Lannes’s corps to take the city, that marshal literally carrying and mounting the first ladder against the city walls. “It was just before this, while still talking with Marshal Lannes about his attempt to retake Ratisbon and giving him his final orders, that a spent bullet from a carbine, probably fired from a considerable distance, struck Napoleon in the right ankle,” Captain Marbot, a witness, related. “The pain was so great that he fell against Marshal Lannes, who caught him and placed him on the ground.” The head of the medical service, Dr. Larrey, was sent for, but he found nothing serious, apart from an extremely painful bruised Achilles’ tendon. Napoleon as usual had been very lucky; another few inches and he might have been crippled for life. However, the rumor quickly spread that he had been wounded, and officers and soldiers rushed to him from all directions. Marbot continued, “In a moment thousands of men surrounded Napoleon, in spite of enemy cannon fire which concentrated on this huge group.” In order to dispel any distorted tales as to his condition, a bandaged Napoleon was hoisted carefully onto his little horse “and made the rounds of the entire French line, amid the acclamation of these brave warriors whom he had so often led to victory!” But on returning to his field headquarters, Napoleon fainted.
Ratisbon and the bridge were finally taken, ending this first phase of fighting, resulting in some thirty thousand Austrian casualties (including prisoners). Archduke Karl did, however, manage to extricate most of his army, retreating to the northeast on the other side of the Danube, while the rest of his force, under the command of General Hiller, remained on the southern bank, pursued by Masséna, but with orders to slow the French advance. This series of battles did succeed in discouraging wavering states of the Rhineland Confederation — Bavaria, Württemberg, and Saxony — from abandoning Napoleon. Despite the escape of the Austrian army, Lannes, Davout, Mouton, and St.-Hilaire had all performed well thus far, Napoleon even promising St.-Hilaire a marshal’s baton at the end of the campaign (which, alas, he was not to survive).
Meanwhile, still on the south bank with Napoleon’s main force, the valiant General Hiller did his best to hinder the French, clashing with them seriously at Weis on May 2 and then in a more serious battle the following day at Ebersberg. There his forty thousand troops held the town, protecting their own gradual withdrawal safely across the Danube near Krems, despite a vigorous if costly frontal attack by Masséna’s corps. The skillful Hiller made good his escape to rejoin the main Austrian army to the north.
After also dispatching Davout’s corps after Hiller, Napoleon ordered the main French force still with him to advance on Vienna. As for Archduke Karl, he was in fact doing just what Napoleon (who still wanted a final, all-out, decisive confrontation) had hoped he would, dropping back closer to the Danube to try to prevent the French from entering the Austrian capital. But as usual the Austrians moved too slowly to achieve this objective, and three days after Napoleon entered Vienna, General Hiller’s corps rejoined Karl.
Reaching the outskirts of Vienna on May 10, less than a month after leaving Paris, Napoleon found not Karl but another Habsburg brother, Archduke Maximilian, defending the capital and refusing to budge. When Napoleon sent a delegation of key officers to negotiate the city’s surrender, they were cut down, all of them severely slashed without warning by a Hungarian cavalry unit. A furious Napoleon immediately ordered a heavy bombardment of Vienna for the next twenty-four hours, his troops finally seizing the city only on the thirteenth.
Not even the already practically deaf Beethoven could work under the continuous thunder of French guns: “What a destructive, disorderly life I see and hear all around me: nothing but drums, cannon and human misery in every form...We are finally enjoying a little peace after the violent destruction after having suffered every hardship imaginable.” Beethoven’s initial enthusiasm and support for Napoleon had between 1802 and 1805 given way to disillusion, and his Third Symphony, initially titled “Bonaparte,” was renamed “Eroica.” “What do you say to this dead peace?” he asked his publishers. “I no longer expect to see any stability again in this age of ours.”
Within easy cannon-shot of Beethoven’s apartment, Napoleon now moved back into his old quarters in the sprawling yellow Schönbrunn Palace on the other side of the city walls. That evening, enjoying a nearly full moon, Napoleon ordered one of his equerries to bring up a horse from the royal stables, and then went riding with Marshal Lannes at his side, followed at a discreet distance by his staff and a large cavalry escort. Scarcely had they set out when the unexpected happened, as told by Lannes’s aide-de-camp, Captain Marbot: “The emperor’s mount suddenly bolted, flinging him heavily to the ground, he lying there stretched out, motionless, not giving the slightest sign of life! We thought he was dead! He was only unconscious, however, and we gradually revived him. Although Marshal Lannes wanted him to return, Napoleon insisted upon continuing the evening’s ride.” A milder mount was brought up to replace the recalcitrant steed:
Afterward, having completed the promenade and once back in the vast courtyard of the palace, the emperor ordered his numerous military staff and the squadron of imperial cavalry — everyone who had witnessed his fall — to gather about him in a large circle, where he forbade them from ever mentioning what they had seen, including members of the other ranks. So religiously did they guard that secret that neither the army nor Europe ever learned that Napoleon had nearly broken his neck and killed himself that night.
Why the state secret about something so commonplace as a fall from a horse, albeit a serious one? Apparently Napoleon felt that an emperor must always appear perfect to his men, never capable of mistakes or weakness — or of disappearing permanently without warning, in a mere blink of an eye. Or was it simply that he did not want to be the butt of their jokes, the great man who was conquering the world but could not even ride a horse?
On Napoleon’s inspection of Vienna, his consternation at finding the bridges to the other side of the Danube destroyed was great (intact in 1805, they had permitted the rapid crossing of the entire French army, resulting in the battle of Austerlitz). This time, with the bridges burned or blown up by the Austrians, Napoleon and Lannes went out daily to study possible crossing points. One of these was located just upriver of Vienna, across from Schwartze-Laken Island. Although the Danube was already churning rapidly many feet above the normal water level, and filled with all sorts of floating vegetation and even entire trees swept downstream by the muddy current, Marshal Lannes ordered General St.-Hilaire to select five hundred troops to row over to that island, which was already manned by some Austrian outposts, with easy access to the northern side of the river by a small bridge.
The five hundred Frenchmen, using every spare boat available, crossed the few hundred yards of raging water to reach Schwartze-Laken Island, where they encountered much heavier resistance than expected, quickly reniforced from the far shore. In no time at all half the French unit sent to establish a beachhead there had been killed and the remainder wounded. It was a fiasco. Seeing the plight of the men, Lannes and Napoleon ordered a rescue, but there weren’t any boats left. Beside himself with anxiety, watching his men being cut down helplessly before his eyes, Lannes tripped over a half-submerged cable and fell headlong into the swirling waters. Napoleon, the only person close to him, quickly jumped into the water up to his waist, just in time to catch Lannes before he was swept out of reach. Other officers quickly ran over to help Napoleon and succeeded in dragging both men back. A grateful Lannes embrace
d his old colleague in arms. It had been a close call, but nothing could be done for the troops isolated on the island.
Given the altered circumstances he found in Vienna, Napoleon was forced to rethink his situation. Archduke Karl had escaped with his large army intact, and his younger brother, Archduke Johann, had just defeated Eugène de Beauharnais at Sacile and was apparently now advancing toward Vienna. Napoleon, who had hoped to destroy the Austrians at Eckmühl or Ratisbon, thus had to recast his plans completely.
Across the Danube just north of Vienna, Archduke Karl commanded a total of 115,000 men even after the large losses from the previous series of battles and the usual large-scale desertions. Napoleon had only Lannes’s and Masséna’s corps at present, with the reserve cavalry and guard, for a total of 82,000 — a full army corps less than the Austrians — while the rest of the French army remained scattered to the west, keeping an eye on various opposing units. This was a bit misleading, however, for when taking into account the other remaining corps between Staubing and Vienna, Napoleon could call in within a couple of weeks another 95,000 men for a theoretical total of 177,000, although some units would have to be detached to remain behind permanently to guard the long French logistical line with Donauworth and Strasbourg. With Lannes and Masséna, Napoleon did of course have immediately at hand two veteran commanders on whom he could depend in just about any situation.
Although Napoleon was determined to attack and destroy Archduke Karl before he could join forces with his brother Johann’s smaller army of thirty thousand, the destruction of the Viennese bridges had forestalled an immediate French pursuit and attack. The strategic situation — everything — now depended on their ability to cross the Danube.
Bonaparte therefore summoned Gen. Henri Bertrand, the head of the crack French Engineering Corps, to the Schönbrunn and outlined the problem. After studying all the reports submitted by his engineers, a plan of action was decided on, but it was neither easy to put into effect nor particularly secure, given Napoleon’s insistence on speed. Bertrand was to build a series of pontoon sections for an enormous bridge near the village of Kaiser Ebersdorf, a few miles south of Vienna on the south bank, at the point where the Schwcchat River flowed into the Danube opposite the immense, flat, marshy island of Lobau.