Gunther Rothenberg was the world’s leading authority on the Napoleonic Wars. He served with the British, Israeli and US Military, was Professor of History at Purdue University in the US and was also the leading English-speaking historian of warfare in the German-speaking lands. His many distinguished works include The Army of Francis Joseph, The Hapsburg Military Frontier and The Napoleonic Wars.
THE
EMPEROR’S
LAST VICTORY
NAPOLEON AND THE BATTLE OF WAGRAM
Gunther E. Rothenberg
CASSELL
Contents
Cover
About Gunther E. Rothenberg
Title page
List of maps
Introduction
Author’s preface
Acknowledgements
Author’s Acknowledgements
Maps
Gunther Erich Rothenberg
1 The War of 1809
2 The contending armies
3 The initial Austrian offensive into Bavaria
4 The subsidiary theatres
5 Aspern–Essling: Napoleon repulsed
6 Across the Danube
7 Wagram: The first day
8 Wagram: The second day
9 Wagram, Znaim and the end of the war
Selected short biographies
Suggestions for further reading
Orders of battle: Aspern–Essling
Orders of battle: Wagram
Notes
Index
Copyright
List of Maps
MAP 1
The Danube Campaign, April–July 1809
MAP 2
Crossing the Danube, 0200–0800 hours, 5 July 1809
MAP 3
French advance on to Marchfeld, 0800–1499 hours, 5 July 1809
MAP 4
Evening attack, 1700–2300 hours, 5 July 1809
MAP 5
(Second Day) Austrian morning attack, 0400–1100 hours, 6 July 1809
MAP 6
(Second Day) French counter-attacks, 1100–1500 hours, 6 July 1809
Introduction
The Emperor’s Last Victory does fitting justice to what is increasingly recognized as a fundamental turning point in the wars of 1792–1815, when Napoleon, although indeed victorious, encountered an army which was not only singularly persistent, but the first to bring divisions and corps into battle in a way which had been a monopoly of the French. The present study is a work of impeccable formal scholarship, as will be recognized by its supporting apparatus of references; it is also the product of a life and of sympathies which were as varied as any to be found in the author’s generation.
Gunther Rothenberg’s own experience of contrasting active service and contrasting military cultures was crucial to his formation as a military historian. He knew that both the fighting and what lay behind the fighting deserved serious consideration, and he had learned that military operations did not lend themselves to formulae: ‘you just do the best you can with the forces at hand’.
His list of published works, his talk and his travels show him to have been a man thoroughly at home in the wider culture of central and eastern Europe, and more specifically the former territories of the Habsburg Empire. Indeed he was once described as ‘the Emperor Franz Joseph’s most loyal subject’. He set himself against history as ‘an exercise in nostalgia’, yet there is affection as well as understanding in what he could write of the cities and little towns where ‘still stands the barracks painted in the characteristic Habsburg faded yellow’.
Gunther was an enemy of academic careerism and bureaucracy, and he wrote in a clear and elegant English which is not always to be found among other professional historians on either side of the Atlantic. He was on the editorial board of the leading British historical journal, War in History, and lived to see military history accepted into the mainstream of British academic life. He was a frequent contributor to its transatlantic counterpart, the Journal of Military History, and his achievement remains a standing reproach to those circles which have sought to deny military history comparable status in America.
It is fair to adapt and apply to Gunther Rothenberg some phrases which are to be found in The Army of Francis Joseph, his favourite among his own writings: he ‘carried out his mission, did his duty, and remained faithful’.
Christopher Duffy
London, June 2004
Author’s preface
WAGRAM IN HISTORY
Other than the Battle of the Nations of October 1813, the Battle of Wagram, fought on 5–6 July 1809, was the largest engagement of the Napoleonic Wars, indeed of the early nineteenth century. Along a front of 14 miles, 300,000 French and Austrian troops supported by almost 1,500 guns clashed for two days. Combined casualties reached 72,000. If perhaps not as brilliant a victory as Austerlitz four years earlier – the Austrian army retired in good order and still combat capable – it was none the less a decisive victory for the French, the last Napoleonic victory to break the enemy’s will to continue fighting.
As so often during these wars, promised British support was too little and much too late. None the less, Britain profited from the campaign of 1809 after Napoleon had been compelled to leave Spain hurriedly to take command in Germany. Had he been able to remain on the Peninsula, it is probable the campaign in Spain would have turned out very differently. The emperor might well have broken Spanish resistance and driven Wellington into the sea. Further, had he been able to transfer to central Europe the close-on 300,000 troops he was forced to keep in Spain, it may well have made the difference between victory and defeat in the Russian campaign of 1812.
The 1809 campaign has been called not just a turning point of the Napoleonic Wars but of warfare in general. Robert Epstein has described it as demonstrating the revival of ‘symmetry’ in European warfare, with the recent introduction of a corps system in the Habsburg Army narrowing, if not eliminating, the gap between the French and Austrians. In turn, this reduced Napoleon’s capacity to deliver a decisive stroke and turned Wagram, the climactic battle of the campaign, into a two-day attritional engagement, foreshadowing the emergence of modern war. That said, the degree to which the Austrians had fully absorbed French operational methods by 1809, especially staff organization, remains in doubt.
James R. Arnold, on the other hand, has judged that the principal importance of the campaign was tactical. For him, the decisive factors were the increased weight of artillery fire – at Wagram the artillery of each side fired approximately 95,000 rounds – and the decrease in the effectiveness of battle cavalry, even if it was still useful in screening off breakthroughs and covering withdrawals. Epstein also disputes the notion that the quality of Napoleonic infantry had declined by 1809, and here their grim stand against great odds in an earlier battle of the campaign, at Aspern–Essling, must be added to their performance at Wagram. On both occasions the French and their allied troops alike fought extremely well, the German Confederation of the Rhine forces apparently immune to Austrian appeals to German nationalism.
These arguments, of course, are not mutually contradictory and with some reservations I accept both. There can be little doubt, for example, that Wagram was a forerunner of the operational and tactical developments of the American Civil War and, with modifications, of the Prussian victories in the wars of German unification. However, I place greater emphasis on the personalities and the generalship of the commanders on the two sides. I accept that as head of state and supreme commander Napoleon enjoyed greater flexibility while the Austrian commander, Archduke Charles, was often hampered by the ambivalence and mistrust of his elder brother, the Emperor Francis I, as well as by the interests of the senior officers
and military bureaucracy. But Wagram was not simply a case of the Austrians losing the battle: Napoleon definitely won it. At Wagram, Napoleon’s genius, his ability to combine detail in his preparations and then his superb battle handling of his corps, themselves led by enterprising commanders, was decisive. On the other hand, while a capable general, Archduke Charles lacked the hunger for victory. He did not use the weeks before the battle to good purpose and he was hesitant and slow in command, a style mirrored by his chief subordinates. As both in earlier and in later wars, with roughly equal numbers and quality of troops, generalship and leadership remained the decisive elements contributing to victory.
A NOTE ON RANKS AND NAMES
The highest rank in the Austrian Army in 1809 was generalissimus (or generalissimo), an ancient title resurrected specifically for Archduke Charles. Otherwise the highest rank was feldmarschall (FM), followed by feldmarschalleutnant, abbreviated as FML, or general der cavallerie (GdC). Below this was general major (GM) or major general, usually the commander of a brigade.
In the French Army the highest rank was marshal, actually an aristocratic title rather than just a military rank, followed by général de division (GD). Both ranks commanded corps, though the generals could also command smaller formations. The lowest general officer was général de brigade (GB). The Confederation of the Rhine ranks were similar with a general leutnant (GL) the equal of a général de division and brigade general (BG) the equivalent of its French counterpart.
Senior officers on both sides were usually members of the nobility, especially in the Confederation of the Rhine; in France, Napoleon had reintroduced noble titles in 1807. However, such titles, though used by Napoleon in addressing his corps commanders, have been largely omitted in the text. Also in the interest of brevity the often extremely long first names have been omitted or shortened in the text but are cited in full in the biographies. Thus, for instance, FML Josef Count Radetzky von Radetz becomes simply FML Josef Radetzky, while GD Count Claude Juste Alexandre Legrand is abbreviated to GD Claude Legrand.
Acknowledgements
My husband, Gunther E. Rothenberg, died after the manuscript had been edited but while the book was still in press. I want to thank Angus MacKinnon, the commissioning editor, and his successor, Ian Drury, for their support of the project, and – above all – Penny Gardiner for her friendship, enthusiasm and understanding. I am grateful to Dr Christopher Duffy for his Introduction, and to all concerned at Weidenfeld and Nicolson for their help. Above all, I wish to thank Professor Frederick C. Schneid of High Point University, Gunther’s friend and former student, for his considerable commitment of time and expertise to oversee the completion of the book as a fitting tribute to Gunther as a scholar.
Eleanor Hancock
Author’s Acknowledgements
The writing of this book was facilitated by the hospitality and support of the School of History, University College of the University of New South Wales, Australian Defence Force Academy, Canberra. I want to acknowledge the help provided by several of my former students at the University of New Mexico and Purdue University. These include Professors Robert M. Epstein, Frederick C. Schneid, and Lee W. Eysturlid who provided me with encouragement as well as specific data and documentation unavailable in Australia.
Also I wish to acknowledge the patience of the editors at Weidenfeld & Nicolson for their patience in extending the deadline for delivery of the manuscript. Specifically I want to thank Penny Gardiner, my personal editor and friend, whose encouragement made me continue to work when I had reached a dead end and for her painstaking editorial skills that have greatly improved the readability of the book. Finally, last but not least I wish to express my gratitude to my wife, Dr Eleanor Hancock, Senior Lecturer in the School of History at ADFA, who provided the all important daily support. It only remains to say that I remain personally responsible for any errors in the book.
Gunther E. Rothenberg VISITING PROFESSOR UNSW@ADFA
GUNTHER ERICH ROTHENBERG
11 July 1923 – 26 April 2004
Gunther Erich Rothenberg was born in Berlin on 11 July 1923, the second son of Erich and Lotte Rothenberg, née Cohn. His father was an export merchant and a German Army officer. Gunther inherited Prussian values of duty and service to the state from his family, which was highly educated and assimilated, with links to the civil and military service for over a century. With the coming to power of National Socialism when he was almost 10 Gunther’s life changed from one of affluence to one of insecurity. Because of the worsening conditions for German Jews after 1933, Gunther and his mother left for the Netherlands in 1936–7, where they were later joined by his father. Gunther attended boarding school in England in 1937–8, before leaving for Palestine in 1939. He joined Haschomer Hazair and was active after his arrival in Palestine in several youth groups and in the Haganah.
In 1941 Gunther Rothenberg joined the British Army, rising to the rank of sergeant. Determined to play his part in the defeat of Nazism, he transferred from the Royal Army Service Corps to the Infantry and finally the Intelligence Corps and fought with the Eighth Army in Egypt, Italy, and Austria. Gunther saw action behind German lines in the desert and undertook a number of missions to link up with partisan groups in the Adriatic. His decorations by war’s end included the Distinguished Conduct Medal and the Medal of Merit.
After serving in the British occupation of Austria, he was employed by US Intelligence as a civilian in Austria from 1946 to 1948, before returning to Palestine. There he joined the Palmach and fought in the War of Independence, rising to the rank of Captain in the Haganah, later the Israeli Defence Force.
In 1948–9 he migrated via Canada to the United States, to join his widowed mother. (His parents emigrated from the Netherlands to the United States in 1941.) Gunther enlisted in the US Army and then the US Air Force, fighting in the Korean War, and serving until 1955.
As a child Gunther had the ambition of becoming a professor of military history. Though he never finished high school, he graduated with a BA from the University of Illinois in 1954 while still in the USAF. He completed his MA at the University of Chicago in 1956 and his PhD in 1958 from the University of Illinois, and began what was to become an illustrious career. After four years teaching at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, he was a member of the faculty of the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, for ten years, rising to full professor. In 1973 he moved to Purdue University, where he spent the rest of his American academic career until May 1999. In 1985 Gunther was a Visiting Fulbright Fellow in the Department of History in the Faculty of Military Studies at RMC Duntroon. In 1999 Gunther retired from Purdue to settle permanently in Australia. From 1995 to 2001 he was a Visiting Fellow at the School of Historical Studies, Monash University. From July 2001 until his death, he was Visiting Professorial Fellow in the School of History at the University of New South Wales at the Australian Defence Force Academy. Gunther died in Canberra on Monday 26 April 2004, aged 80.
As a teacher and mentor Gunther excelled. In lectures – whether to undergraduates, graduates, or at the many staff colleges where he taught – Gunther was the consummate showman. He loved to talk, with the result that his classes were animated theatrical performances, entertaining, but suffused with a deep understanding of and love for history. He also loved his students, and for those whom he supervised as graduate students he had a special and enduring regard. They were ‘his boys’: a stern taskmaster, Gunther guided and nurtured them in their studies and subsequent careers, and in return they held him in a mixture of awe and deep affection. This was demonstrated in February this year, when Gunther was Guest of Honour at a meeting of the Consortium on Revolutionary Europe held in High Point, North Carolina. It was a very public way for many of his former graduate students to show the great esteem in which they held him. One of them wrote on hearing of Gunther’s death: ‘He was tough on the outside, and yet we, “his boys”, knew the gentleness and kindness within. Our standard joke was, to paraphrase Kiplin
g, “We’d rather be kicked by him than knighted by the Queen of England”.’ As a mentor, he transcended the role of professor by setting an example of what a historian can be, and providing the guidance for students to get there.
In addition to a full and extensive teaching load, and continuing participation in military education, Gunther quickly became one of the world’s leading authorities on Austrian and Napoleonic military history. He was ‘the father of the modern history of the Austrian military border’ in Croatia, publishing The Austrian Military Border in Croatia, 1522–1747 (1960) and The Military Border in Croatia, 1740–1882 (1966). Then he turned to the study of the Austrian Army itself: The Army of Francis Joseph, 1815–1918, which he himself considered to be his best book, appeared in 1976. His article ‘Moltke the Elder, Schlieffen and the Theory and Practice of Strategic Envelopment’, which appeared in Makers of Modern Strategy in 1986, is one of the best analyses of the two commanders, and is read in universities and in armed forces’ schools and colleges throughout the world.
In the 1970s he also established himself as an international Napoleonic scholar with The Art of Warfare in the Age of Napoleon in 1977. This is one of the authoritative works in the field, and regularly appears on course reading lists worldwide. It was followed by Napoleon’s Great Adversaries: the Archduke Charles and the Austrian Army, 1792–1814 (1982) and The Napoleonic Wars (1999). At the time of his death he was putting the finishing touches to this study of the Battle of Wagram.
Gunther was an extremely vital personality, with a wry sense of humour, who impressed all who met him. An adventurous and varied life gave him a deep understanding of human nature. Yet at the same time he was a very private person. He was guided by a deep sense of duty, which arose from his Prussian background. He had a strong sense of American patriotism, fuelled in part by his gratitude to the United States for having provided him a home and unlimited opportunity. He was also guided by devotion to Judaism, to the future of Israel and the survival of the Jewish people. Gunther died on the anniversary in the Jewish calendar of Israel’s Day of Independence, the day for which he had fought as a soldier.
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