Rather ungenerously, an exasperated Charles felt that some regimental officers and troops had let him down. In a message to his corps commanders, he complained that ‘the troops on the left wing have failed to achieve their assigned mission, one which considering their numbers, their position and the importance of the day I had every right to expect being carried out. These troops are responsible for the unhappy outcome of the battle.’ There had been confusion and disorder during the advance on the first day and the withdrawal on the second day had been too rapid. ‘In general,’ the archduke continued, ‘with some exceptions I am not satisfied with the conduct of the infantry.’ The regimental officers had not done their best to keep order and ‘shouting was so general that commanders could not be heard’. In the future, the colonels should either keep their regiments quiet or they would be cashiered, the officers dismissed and the rank and file decimated, with the remainder assigned to other regiments. Finally GM Riese, who had been conspicuously absent during the desperate fighting on the plateau at Markgrafneusiedl, was dismissed from the service.16 The message, to say the least, revealed Charles at his worst and hurt troop morale. It blamed IV Corps when his own belated orders had failed to bring his right wing into combat at the appointed time and heaped scorn on the troops. Yet the troops had more than done their duty and fought well despite a steadily deteriorating situation.
THE CASUALTY TOLL
Wagram was the largest battle fought in Europe up to this time. Over 300,000 men had fought for two days along an extended front with very heavy losses, largely inflicted by an unprecedented concentration of artillery. While the estimates for losses suffered by both sides vary greatly, some 72,000 casualties – that is, killed, wounded, prisoners and missing – divided almost evenly between the two sides, seems the most likely number, the highest for any Napoleonic battle thus far.
Details are difficult to determine because many of the Austrian casualty returns include not just the great battle on 5–6 July and subsequent retreat but the final battle at Znaim on 10–11 July and there were a great number of stragglers. For instance, the return from Hohenzollern’s II Corps for 5–6 July shows about one fourth of its line infantry ‘missing’, while the 8th Jäger Battalion that had defended Baumersdorf was noted as ‘destroyed’.17 However, a careful reckoning results in an approximate total of 37,000 casualties, amounting to roughly 26 per cent of the Austrians’ total strength. They included 4 general officers, 120 officers and 5,507 men killed; and 13 generals, 616 officers and 17,490 men wounded. The Austrians also had 18,000 men taken prisoner. In addition, according to the morning reports of 11 July there was a difference of 51,626 officers and men compared with the strength available on 5 July, which even when casualties must be considered, would for the most part appear to have gone missing during the fighting retreat.
At Wagram itself there were considerable differences in casualty rates between the corps. The exposed Advance Guard lost around 50 per cent, by far the heaviest proportion, while Kolowrat’s rather timorously led III Corps suffered but 11 per cent casualties. The heaviest losses occurred in defence of the Russbach line where I, II, and IV Corps each lost 30 per cent. Mainly fighting in the plain, the Cavalry Reserve lost 21 per cent of its strength, while Klenau’s VI Corps and the Grenadiers suffered losses of 16 per cent. In short, the corps taking the offensive on their flanks had fewer casualties than those standing on the defence.
Napoleon’s casualty reports are notoriously unreliable but the French losses were certainly higher than the grossly understated ‘1,500 killed and 3,000 or 4,000 wounded’ claimed in Napoleon’s official bulletin. One tabulation shows French and allied losses at about 27,500, including 5 generals, 238 officers and 17,490 other ranks killed and 37 generals, 883 officers and 25,847 other ranks wounded. It gives the number of French prisoners as 4,000. Included in this are the severe losses incurred by the Army of Italy. Of its 20,300 troops, most of them French, it had 6,350 casualties at Wagram. Casualties among the other corps varied: Bernadotte’s Saxons lost 590 killed, 2,189 wounded and 1,356 captured; 2, 3 and 4 Corps together lost about 12,000 killed or wounded; while Marmont’s 11 Corps, which only saw action briefly on 6 July, lost under 500 men to cannon fire. Finally, the losses among the cavalry divisions varied. Arrighi’s cuirassiers suffered the heaviest in officers and men, almost 500, including 29 officers, the result of the failed charge up the plateau ordered by Davout. Unusually for a battle that left one side in possession of the battlefield, the defeated Austrians actually carried away more trophies than the victor, claiming 12 standards or eagles and 21 guns. The French claimed to have captured 10 flags and 20 guns, though the Austrians conceded the loss of only one, clearly omitting the losses suffered the first day, the regimental flag of IR 35 Argenteau, as well as 18,000 prisoners, with most of them wounded.
A NEW STYLE OF WAR
It has become a commonplace among historians to assign the limited but still decisive victory achieved at Wagram to a decline in Napoleon’s genius and the alleged inferior quality of infantry unable to execute complex evolutions and therefore having to be deployed in columns. This, however, cannot be accepted. Napoleon was the attacker and columns were normally used in assaults against defended positions. Then, too, Wagram was a new style of battle, requiring new tactics. Many analysts regard Wagram as a success won by sheer bludgeoning carried out by a combination of massed manpower and artillery, foreshadowing the battles of the American Civil War, Verdun and the Somme. It is true that Wagram was the first great artillery battle. Each side fired well over 90,000 rounds and artillery inflicted the most casualties. By the same token, skirmishers had become less important and the cavalry’s role more restricted. But more decisive, however, as the historian Robert Epstein suggested some years ago, was the adoption of new tactical and operational formations by the Austrians, the corps system that changed the dynamics of combat. Although poorly understood and not fully exploited by the Austrian commanders, as well as indifferently executed, the introduction of the corps system made it much more difficult to achieve the complete overthrow and destruction of an opposing army.18 In the past, Napoleon had faced old-fashioned unitary armies, with at best divisional formations, and by employing his corps system had been able to manoeuvre across a broad front, concentrating his forces for a decisive battle at a decisive point. So long as his opponents did not adopt a similar system, this provided a decisive advantage. But in 1809 he faced an army that in its organizational structure, if not its system of command and control, mirrored that of his own. While imperfect, with a commander who had despaired of victory and an ineffective and cumbersome staff system, it was still enough to change the nature of the enemy army and with it the dynamics of warfare. Army corps, formations combining several divisions with their own artillery and a small cavalry component, were not only powerful but more resilient in battle. After Wagram, where casualties were about even and the defeated army actually took more trophies than the victor, Napoleon is supposed to have exclaimed that ‘War was never like this, neither prisoners, nor guns. This day will have no results.’ Actually, the emperor was wrong. Admittedly, though it was not an Austerlitz or a Jena, Wagram must be considered a Napoleonic victory. It broke Austria’s will and capabilities to resist and so, for all practical purposes, it ended the war of 1809.
THE SLOW END TO THE WAR OF 1809
Various factions continued to sway the Emperor Francis, who with his entourage was making his way to Hungary, first establishing his headquarters at Komorn fortress and then at the nearby manor house at Totis. Almost all his civilian advisors favoured continuing the war and the various factions competed to promote schemes to reverse the verdict of Wagram or, at the very least, obtain more favourable terms from Napoleon. Archduke John talked about great schemes to assemble an army of 60,000 at Oedenburg to attack Napoleon’s rear in the Marchfeld and, with the Tyroleans still fighting on, raising a popular revolt spreading from the Tyrol into Upper Austria. Metternich, Austria’s envoy to Paris
and now released from internment in France, who had replaced Stadion as foreign minister and chancellor, maintained that Austria still had 250,000 effectives and that the people were willing to support and continue the war. He did, however, propose that this strength should be used to obtain the best possible peace terms. Most of this talk was quite unrealistic. Charles had left behind a plan to resume along the left bank of the Danube west of Vienna, but Liechtenstein rejected this as totally impractical.19 On 15 August, Wimpffen submitted a sober assessment to the emperor. Without discussing the issue of war or peace he pointed out that troop morale was shaken and discipline deteriorating. There was neither transport nor ammunition for major offensive operations and little had been done to prepare fortified positions for defensive operations.20
Under these circumstances, despite all the posturing at imperial headquarters, the provisions of the armistice were accepted. The line of demarcation between the armies was the border between Bohemia and Upper Austria including the Znaim and Brünn districts in Moravia. To the south the line went to Pressburg, then along the Danube to Raab and the Styrian border and along Carniola and Istria to the Adriatic at Fiume. A large part of this area was either already occupied by French troops or soon would be. The Austrian main army went into cantonments at Budwitz on the road to Vienna. The final disposition of territory was left to the final peace negotiations. Napoleon meanwhile returned to take up residence in Schönbrunn Palace outside Vienna.
French occupation was harsh on occasion and imposed burdens on the civilians, but other than the Tyroleans, who, despite his solemn promises, the Emperor Francis abandoned, the Austrian population was tired of war and accepted the new order. The Hungarians, of course, had been lukewarm from the outset. It was against this resigned background that on 11 August, and after much delay, Britain finally made its move, landing troops in Holland, rather than Germany as agreed, on the island of Walcheren. It was much too late to bring relief to the Austrians. The operation soon turned into a fiasco. After capturing Flushing, the British failed to advance on lightly held Antwerp. Once French troops under Bernadotte, a large proportion of them National Guards, were deployed, so the British were contained on the unhealthy island. On 30 September, the British evacuated their fever-ridden troops. If initially Benjamin Bathurst, the newly arrived British emissary in Komorn, had reported to London that, ‘the landing of His Majesty’s forces in the North of Germany … has infused animation in the Austrian councils’, the evacuation changed the situation. He now informed his superiors that ‘from what I can learn the Emperor appears to have peace constantly on his mind’.21
THE TREATY OF SCHÖNBRUNN
Delaying ratification of the peace treaty could only be pushed so far and in the end Emperor Francis was compelled, once again, to sign a harsh peace. The Treaty of Schönbrunn was signed on 14 October 1809. Austria was compelled to make territorial concessions to the Grand Duchy of Warsaw and surrendered parts of Carinthia, Carniolia, a large portion of the Military Border, the Hungarian littoral and Croatia south of the Sava river to France, which added them to its empire as the Illyrian Provinces. In addition Austria had to pay a heavy indemnity and to limit its army to no more than 150,000 men. None the less, in Vienna news of the humiliating treaty was cheered in the streets and when, on 27 November Archduke Charles returned unaccompanied to Vienna, dressed in the uniform of a colonel of hussars and riding in a simple coach, there was no official reception. The Emperor Francis, the government, the military and even the people were only too willing to ignore him. He never again held active command.
From 1 November, most French troops were withdrawn from Austrian territory, though some remained to take control of the ceded provinces. As usual, additional territory served to augment Napoleon’s manpower. The newly created Illyrian Provinces included the regimental districts of the six Karlstadt and Banal Grenz regiments. Though Prince Eugène was titular head of the Illyrian Provinces, actual administration was confided to Marmont, who was named governor general and commander of all military forces. In November the Austrian administration withdrew and on 1 December 1809 the advance guard of Marmont’s corps clattered across the old wooden bridge over the Kupa into Karlstadt.
The much-repeated story about the undying loyalty and devotion of the Grenzer and their grief at the passing of Habsburg rule must be considered a patriotic legend. While the civilian districts of Croatia were apprehensive about their future under the French, in the Grenzer regiments the French were well received. Though its senior officers left the country, the regimental officers remained at their posts. In effect, the Grenzer passed from Austrian to French rule without any real change in their circumstances. After some deliberations, Napoleon decided to follow Marmont’s recommendations and he retained the regiments as a self-supporting military institution, a bulwark against the Turks and a potential springboard for expansion into the Balkans. From 1811 on, the six Grenzer regiments were assimilated to the light infantry in the imperial service with French replacing German as the official language of command. Initially used as garrison troops, when in 1811 the emperor began to assemble his Grande Armée to invade Russia, they were included as provisional regiments, armed, equipped and organized on the French pattern.22
The year after Wagram, Napoleon still looked unbeatable, but Wagram was his last decisive victory, the last to break the enemy’s political will to resist. To compound the humiliation, Napoleon, intent on founding a legitimate dynasty, demanded the hand of his defeated enemy Francis’s 19-year-old daughter, the Archduchess Marie-Louise. The marriage took place the following year. None the less, Wagram was the high-water mark. The war in Spain continued, demanding more and more troops, relations with the Tsar deteriorated and within two years Napoleon was to assemble his largest army ever, over 600,000, men for his ill-fated invasion of Russia in 1812.23 The Russian debacle encouraged first Prussia and then a reluctant Austria, both supplied with British funds and arms, to join in a final great alliance against Napoleon. Defeated in Saxony in October 1813, his satellites defected, and the following year the victorious allies invaded France. Napoleon, with his marshals unwilling to fight any longer, was forced to abdicate.
Selected short biographies
Albert Kasimir, Herzog von Sachsen-Teschen (1738–1823)
Governor of the Austrian Netherlands 1780–92, adoptive father and confidant to Archduke Charles.
Beauharnais, Viceroy Eugène de (1781–1824)
Napoleon’s stepson, viceroy of Italy in 1805, who in command of the Army of Italy proved a competent commander. He distinguished himself at Wagram and later during the Russian campaign.
Bellegarde, Heinrich Graf von, General der Cavallerie (1756–1845)
Originally a cavalry officer, he served as an advisor to Archduke Charles in the 1796 campaign on the Lower Rhine. An associate of Chancellor Thugut, he received command of a reserve army. In 1800 he was promoted to General of Cavalry and in 1805 commanded in Italy before being replaced by Archduke Charles. Supported the war faction in 1808 and commanded I Corps in Bavaria, Aspern–Essling, Wagram and Znaim in 1809.
Bernadotte, Marshal Jean-Baptiste Jules, prince de Ponto Corvo (1763–1844)
Sergeant major in the Royal Army, commissioned in 1791, he became général de division by 1794. In 1797 he served under Napoleon in Italy and, after holding a number of military and civilian appointments, was among the first eighteen generals elevated to marshal in 1804. As corps commander in the war against Prussia in 1806 he failed to commit his corps at either Jena or Auerstädt, infuriating Napoleon. Appointed to command the Saxon army, the 9 Corps, in March 1809, he mishandled his command at Wagram. He was returned to France in semi-disgrace, but when the British landed at Walcheren in August, the Council of Ministers appointed him to contain the British. His relations with Napoleon deteriorated further when he made a bombastic declaration against him in September. On 21 October, however, he was elected Crown Prince of Sweden and later became king.
Berthier, Marsh
al Louis-Alexandre, prince de Neuchâtel et de Wagram (1753–1815)
Served as a staff officer in the Royal Army. He was promoted to général de brigade in 1795 and to général de division in the same year. He became Napoleon’s chief-of-staff in March 1792 and, with only few interruptions, served him until 1814. Elevated to marshal in 1804, he became chief-of-staff to the Grande Armée in 1805 and served Napoleon in all his major campaigns. He was created Prince de Neuchâtel in 1806 and in recognition of his staff work at Wagram received the title of Prince de Wagram. He was left behind in 1812 when, during the retreat from Moscow, Napoleon departed for Paris. He was Napoleon’s chief-of-staff in 1813–14, but committed suicide in Bamberg on 1 June 1815.
Bertrand, Général Henri-Gratien, comte (1773–1844)
A distinguished engineer officer serving with Napoleon in Italy, Egypt, Syria. Promoted to général de brigade in 1800, Inspector General of Engineers in 1804, and général de division in 1807. He was made a count in 1807. In 1809 he built the bridges across the Danube at Aspern–Essling and at Wagram.
Bessières, Marshal Jean-Baptiste, duc d’Istrie (1768–1813)
A distinguished cavalry commander, he served with Napoleon in Italy and Egypt and became a général de division in 1802. He was made a marshal in 1805. He commanded the cavalry of the Imperial Guard in the famous charge at Austerlitz, and fought at Jena, Eylau and Friedland. He fought in Spain, and he commanded the Reserve Cavalry at Aspern–Essling and Wagram. A cavalry commander in 1812, he was killed by a cannonball during the German campaign of 1813.
Bonaparte, Jerome, King of Westphalia (1784–1860)
Napoleon’s youngest brother, Jerome began his career in the navy. His marriage to an American heiress caused a rift between the brothers, who were reconciled only in 1806. He became King of Westphalia in 1807. He served as commander of 10 Corps in 1809, but was not a distinguished commander.
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