HILLER’S RETREAT AND THE CAPITULATION OF VIENNA
Following the French breakthrough south of Abensberg on 20 April, Hiller, with his own and elements of two other corps, found himself cut off from the main body of the army. He retreated south-east and on 24 April at Neumarkt, 20 miles from Landshut, he turned against Bessières’s Franco-Bavarian pursuers. In a brief engagement, 23,000 foot and 4,000 horse inflicted 2,500 casualties on a weaker French enemy numbering but 16,000 foot and 2,000 horse. But it was not possible to exploit this success. Now aware that Charles was retreating and that Masséna and Lannes were across the Isar, Hiller continued to retreat, making good use of the several tributaries flowing north to the Danube. He crossed into Austrian territory at Braunau on the Inn on 26 April. The same day Legrand’s division of 4 Corps stormed Schärding, compromising Hiller’s next defence line and compelling him to fall back to the line of the Traun.
After receiving numerous and conflicting instructions from Archduke Charles as well as from Vienna, where the court was beginning to interfere with operations, Hiller, much to the anger of the archduke, chose to obey the imperial instructions.11 After first moving to Linz, where a fortified camp was alleged to have been prepared and Landwehr units mobilized, and finding neither fortifications nor Landwehr battalions, a few volunteer units excepted, willing to fight, he took up positions at the market village of Ebelsberg, 5 miles south-east of Linz. This small place, with only eighty-two houses, provided an excellent defensive position located east of the Traun, which was spanned by a 400-yard wide bridge. The streets were narrow and there was a castle overlooking bridge and market. Although Lannes had already crossed the river upstream at Wels, Masséna decided to make a frontal assault across the fortified bridge which the Austrians, hoping to save some transport, had failed to blow. As Claparède’s and Legrand’s divisions, spearheaded across the bridge by the Tirailleurs du Po and the Tirailleurs de Corse, entered the town, heavy and bloody fighting developed. Here the 4th, 5th, and 6th battalions of the Vienna Landwehr volunteers, an exception to the previously poor performance of the Landwehr, distinguished themselves. Hiller, who spent the decisive hours calmly lunching on the castle terrace, concerned above all to preserve his corps, refused to commit his ample reserves after he realized that his rear was menaced by Lannes. About 2.30 in the afternoon he ordered his troops to retire from the town. The last Austrian defenders were the 6th Company of the 4th Vienna Volunteer Battalion, the 1st Battalion of the Mittrowsky Infantry No. 40 and an anonymous gunner who continued to serve his cannon to fire canister at the charging French. Casualties had been heavy on both sides: some 8,300 Austrians and 3,500 French were dead, wounded and captured. About 1,000 of the wounded died in the fire that subsequently swept through the wooden shingle buildings in the main street.12
The engagement, though costly to the Austrians, had improved morale, but the time bought at Ebelsberg proved insufficient to save Vienna. Evading a rather slow French pursuit, Hiller crossed to the north bank of the Danube, burning bridges and removing all boats along a substantial part of the river, arriving at Saint Pölten, 12 miles from the capital, on 10 May. Assured by Archduke Maximilian, the emperor’s brother-in-law, that the capital would be stoutly defended, he detached five grenadier battalions to assist in its defence and then managed to get his corps across the Danube at Krems on 11 May, rejoining the main army at Florisdorf five days later.
THE CAPITULATION OF VIENNA
With over 200,000 inhabitants, Vienna in 1809 was the largest city in central Europe. It was located on the right bank of the Danube, with a small branch of the river separating the city from a large island with the Prater Park and the Leopoldstadt suburb. The city itself was divided into the walled Inner City, housing some 50,000 inhabitants, and a semi-circle of suburbs. Except for the excise walls, the suburbs were unfortified, while the fortifications of the city were outdated with only forty-eight guns mounted on its bastions. But there was a wide, if overgrown, glacis and several hundred guns were stored in the arsenal. From 5 May on, efforts were made to improve the works and 8,000 civilian labourers were employed to clear the glacis and dig hasty fieldworks.13
Vienna also had a substantial garrison: eight line battalions and the five grenadier battalions sent by Hiller, fourteen Landwehr battalions and 6,000 civic militia. In addition, an appeal for volunteers had received an enthusiastic response, though at the appearance of the French advance guard many of these patriotic defenders slunk away. The Viennese were not known for heroic steadfastness. None the less, while the works were clearly inadequate, an aroused population might have made Napoleon pay dearly for the conquest of the city. But neither Archduke Maximilian nor the citizenry were prepared to fight to the bitter end. The imperial court, library and other institutions were packed up and left Vienna, together with many of the leading citizens. When on 11–12 May French advance elements from Lannes’s corps seized Prater island and threw a few howitzer shells into the streets, there was panic and Maximilian, informed that Charles would not arrive until 18 May, decided to evacuate the capital. Had he defended the city it might have put Napoleon in a difficult situation, caught with one part of his army fighting in the streets while the other would have had to turn against the relief army.
But Maximilian lost his nerve. Vienna capitulated on 12 May and late that evening he marched out accompanied by a disorderly column of soldiers, carriages, carts and horses. Encountering a disconcerted Hiller at the north end of the Tabor Bridge he declared, ‘I hereby hand this entire mess and the command over to you’. In his haste to leave the city, Maximilian made no attempt to destroy the hundreds of guns in the arsenal or the stores in the magazines, and even abandoned a war chest of 4 million florins. Also left behind to surrender the city was General O’Reilly with seventeen senior and 163 junior officers and 2,000 men.14
French troops entered Vienna in force on May 13 and the populace quickly came to terms with its new masters. The great families, the Starhembergs, Czatoriskys, Batthyanys and others, freely opened their palaces to extend generous hospitality to French officers, and intimate relations soon developed between high-society ladies and French officers.15 And at the lower social level, as one scandalized contemporary reported, ‘soldiers and girls from the lower classes mingled on the bastions … where scenes took place that made Vienna look like Sodom and Gomorrah’.16 Napoleon had little to fear from the population even after his repulse at Aspern–Essling. He issued a proclamation taking ‘its good citizens under my special protection’ and ordered General Antoine Andréossy, appointed military governor of Vienna, to inspect the Civic Guard and retain an effective force of 6,000 men with 1,500 to 2,000 muskets in service.17
AN EVALUATION
Although the campaign in Bavaria had not achieved the early and decisive victory favoured by Napoleon, it had been an impressive performance. With an improvised and hastily assembled army, about one-third foreign troops and with many raw conscripts, Napoleon had first seized the initiative from the archduke and then driven him back into the Austrian heartland. If this was no longer the army of 1805, it had fought well. But despite reforms that had improved the Austrian Army, the official Austrian history noted sadly, the ‘army still was not equal to the requirements of mobile warfare’. On the strategic level the staff had been unable to coordinate movements while corps commanders had shown little initiative and always kept back too many reserves. On the tactical level the French remained more mobile and were clearly superior in broken terrain.18
As was his unfortunate habit, Charles blamed his subordinates. He was right to assert that they had not been able to handle independent command, though he forgot that he had done nothing to prepare them for such a role. Moreover, Charles, always concerned with maintaining the dynastic prestige, had willingly accepted the appointment of his brothers and other senior members of the dynasty – Archdukes Ludwig, John, Maximilian and Ferdinand – as corps commanders, positions for which they were clearly unqualified. The other corps
commanders, save Hiller, with whom his relations were acrimonious, were all aristocrats, albeit veterans, and all shared the archduke’s predilection for caution. At the same time, as supreme commander, Charles rarely revealed his intentions to them while his instructions, issued by Grünne, were often obscure and ambiguous. To remedy this situation during the retreat to Bohemia, the corps system was abolished, though the designation was retained, and he resolved to return to the old and familiar system of fighting the entire army as one tightly controlled body. Chief-of-staff Prochaska, blamed for the staff shortcomings, was dismissed on 8 May and replaced by MG Franz Wimpffen despite his protests that he lacked the qualifications for the position.19
There also were administrative and command changes. Kolowrat and Hohenzollern exchanged corps, I and II Reserve Corps were combined in a single Army Reserve under Liechtenstein, and an Army Advance Guard was created and placed under Klenau. Finally, in mid May, Archduke Ludwig, another of the emperor’s brothers-in-law, who had never commanded any troops or revealed any great military talent, reported himself sick, retired from his position in command of V Corps and was replaced by FML Heinrich, Prince of Reuss-Plauen.
As for the Austrian multi-national regular troops, regimental officers as well as the rank and file had fought with their usual stolid bravery. However, the legend that in 1809 Austria, or at least its German-speaking areas, was animated by strong patriotic feelings, a view still held by many historians, is at least questionable. The Austrian leadership distrusted the population, and, though there was much patriotic posturing, when challenged only a few Landwehr units fought well and, except for the Tyrol where resistance continued beyond the final armistice, there was no broad popular resistance. Still, in some respects the occupation of Vienna was hollow. While defeated, Charles had managed to escape total destruction. An essentially defensive-minded general who still hoped to come to an accommodation with the enemy, he now was positioned behind a wide river, prepared if necessary to resist any attempt by Napoleon to cross over. The war was not yet over.
CHAPTER FOUR
The subsidiary theatres
The Austrian war plans for 1809 called for offensives on several fronts. In addition to the main thrust against the French and their allied armies in Germany, there were to be complementary operations in north Italy, Dalmatia and Galicia, as well as support for a hoped-for popular rising in Saxony. It was felt that early success would enlist support from the Confederation of the Rhine, while major victories might cause the re-entry of Prussia and Russia in the war against Napoleon. In the Tyrol, in particular, careful plans were laid to provide support for a major insurrection against Bavarian rule. Finally, there was a belief that perhaps even in Italy there might be popular revolts against the French.
Among these potential and actual theatres of operations, the most important, though always clearly secondary for both Austria and France, was north Italy. Here, in addition to defeating the French–Italian forces, Austria hoped to regain the territories lost since 1796 – Lombardy, Venetia, Dalmatia as well as the Tyrol. Napoleon regarded his forces in Italy, the Army of Italy, led by his stepson Eugène de Beauharnais, viceroy of the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy, as the right wing of his deployment, and was primarily concerned to defeat the invading Austrians, Archduke John’s Army of Inner Austria, so as to prevent them from reinforcing the main Austrian army along the Danube. Any minor insurrections against French rule, mainly in north Germany, were to be contained by the newly formed Westphalian 10 Corps, a Dutch division, and in the worst case by a reserve corps under Marshal Kellermann assembling at Frankfurt.
EUGÈNE’S ARMY AND THE STRATEGIC SITUATION IN ITALY
Napoleon has frequently been blamed for not instructing his senior commanders in the higher art of war, but the case of his young stepson Eugène de Beauharnais is a clear exception. Only 27 years old in 1809, throughout 1808 and into 1809 Eugène received a series of detailed notes regarding the art of war and the defence of the kingdom from his stepfather. In addition, Napoleon provided Eugène with experienced advisors and commanders. These included Generals Charpentier, who had campaigned with Masséna in north Italy, as chief-of-staff, and Paul Grenier, a highly competent old soldier who was given a divisional and later corps command when the Army of Italy reorganized after its initial defeat. The most influential French corps commander was General Etienne Macdonald, who arrived in Italy after the fighting had begun. Having been under a cloud because of his association with General Moreau and partly because of his affair with Princess Pauline from 1800 to 1808, Macdonald was eager to re-establish his reputation and, though his memoirs tend to award himself more credit than was due, he was clearly an excellent fighting soldier. The third corps commander was the veteran General Baraguey d’Hilliers, while General Emmanuel de Grouchy was appointed to lead the army’s cavalry reserve. Following his stepfather’s example, Eugène kept his Royal Guard, commanded by Brigadier Giuseppe Lecchi, under his personal control. At the next level several division commanders had either fought in Italy in 1805 or in other parts of the empire and on the whole were better than their Austrian counterparts. Despite this talent around him and the emperor’s constant personal interest and advice, Eugène was clearly in command of the Army of Italy and improved as the campaign progressed.
While the content of the imperial notes and instructions varied during the period 1808–9, Napoleon tended to emphasize strategic defence: in the end, it was the main French army on the Danube that would decide the fate of Italy during the course of a war. Even when in January 1809 the emperor became concerned with the growing evidence of Austria’s belligerent intentions and sent a new set of notes with even more precise instructions, he still advocated a defensive strategy for Eugène’s Army of Italy.1 In any case, Napoleon did not regard war as imminent, and, perhaps relying too much on the Tsar’s promises made at Erfurt, expected Vienna to have second thoughts. But even if war came, he held that an Austrian offensive could not open before the end of April, perhaps even May. He did make preparations to strengthen and concentrate his forces in Germany, though 15,000 new recruits were earmarked for Italy. In addition, in January he had warned his German allies of a possible threat and instructed them to mobilize, while Eugène levied some 9,000 new recruits in the kingdom. By March 1809, Eugène’s army comprised nine infantry divisions – six French and three Italian – as well as three cavalry divisions: two dragoons and one light cavalry. The regiments of the Army of Italy were solid troops, if not all up to strength or fully trained, especially those units recalled from Spain and Naples and six battalions from Dalmatia. An initial drawback was that the Army of Italy was not organized in corps until several weeks after the beginning of war. Still, including the two veteran French divisions, about 7,000 men each, of General Auguste Marmont’s Army of Dalmatia, the later 11 Corps, Eugène’s forces – 56,700 infantry, 5,600 cavalry, 5,120 Royal Guard, a total of well over 70,000 with 132 guns – far outnumbered the Austrian Army of Inner Austria preparing to invade the kingdom.2
Even so, the size of the Army of Italy did not offset the shortcomings of its strategic dispositions. Napoleon’s instructions to his stepson advocated that at least initially he remain on the strategic defence behind the natural barriers provided by the numerous rivers and mountains to the north. And though by the end of March the situation in Germany was becoming more threatening, the emperor, relying on Russian support and wishing to avoid provoking the Austrians by premature concentrations, did not revise his instructions. ‘As for me,’ he wrote to Eugène, ‘I will remain stationary for all of April and I do not think that the Austrians will attack especially with the Russians moving on Hungary and Galicia.’3 But after 1 April the situation had clearly changed and Napoleon’s failure to alert Eugène was a serious miscalculation.
Napoleon had given Eugène a free hand to evacuate the forward area between the Isonzo and Piave rivers, in an extremity to fall back to the Adige or even the Piave, but he had not yet given him permission to
form corps or appoint corps commanders. Therefore, though receiving numerous reports about Austrian concentrations, Eugène retained a false sense of security and left his army dispersed across the kingdom. In March he had only part of his army deployed forward: two divisions, General Serras’s 1st (French) and Broussier’s 2nd (French), supported by a cavalry brigade between the Isonzo and Tagliamento rivers. The rest of the army was deployed behind the successive river lines. Two additional French divisions, Grenier’s 3rd and Lamarque’s 4th, were between the Tagliamento and the Piave, while the Italian divisions were in front of the Adige river. The Italian Royal Guard and the cavalry divisions encamped behind the Adige and the Guard at Milan, while Barbou’s 4th and Durutte’s 6th (French) divisions were organizing in north central Italy around Bologna. Clearly these dispositions were compromised if the insurgents, reinforced by regular Austrian troops, took much of the Tyrol, though in the event the hardy mountaineers were neither willing nor able to provide a strategic threat in the Italian plain. In any case, Napoleon’s instructions to remain on the strategic defensive explain Eugène’s decision not to concentrate beyond the Piave or withdraw from the Isonzo.4 Even clear warnings from agents in Trieste could not shake Eugène’s conviction that war was not imminent, and on 10 April he wrote to his wife that he did not expect hostilities in the near future.5
THE AUSTRIANS INVADE ITALY
But the Austrian Army of Inner Austria was already marching. Its commander, Archduke John, had led an army at Hohenlinden in 1800 and a corps in 1805 and had been defeated on both occasions, but his dynastic status ensured him another command. A stubborn and uncooperative man, he held a greatly exaggerated opinion of his military talents and was unwilling to subordinate himself when needed to Archduke Charles. His command consisted of two corps: VIII (24,500 infantry and 2,600 cavalry, under FML Albert Gyulai, concentrating in Carinthia); and IX (22,000 infantry and 2,000 cavalry, under FML Ignaz Gyulai, who also held office as Ban of Croatia, concentrating in Carniola). In addition to its regular troops each corps had second-line components, Landwehr and insurrectio, which remained as a general reserve inside their province of origin, and deployed a division-sized task force. The first task force, originally assigned to VIII Corps, was under FML Johann de Chasteler, who with 10,000 foot and 370 horse, was to enter the Tyrol on 9 April to trigger a prearranged insurrection there and cut communications between the French armies in Germany and Italy. Detached from IX Corps was Major General Stojevich, who was assigned some 12,000 Grenzer to attack Marmont and recover lost Austrian territory in Croatia and Dalmatia.
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