Chapter 24

In September 1805, the seven corps which made up the Grande Armee were on the march from their positions on the coast to the banks of the Danube. They were already in the countries of Baden and Wurtemberg when, on the 1st October, Napoleon, in person, crossed the Rhine at Strasburg. A part of the large force which the Russians were sending to the aid of Austria had at that moment arrived in Moravia, and the cabinet at Vienna should, with prudence, have waited until this powerful reinforcement had joined the Austrian army; but, carried away by an enthusiasm which they did not usually display, and which was inspired by Field-marshal Mack, it had despatched him, at the head of eighty thousand men, to attack Bavaria; the possession of which had been coveted by Austria for several centuries, and which French policy had always protected from invasion. The Elector of Bavaria, forced to abandon his state, took refuge with his family and his troops in Wurtzburg, from where he begged Napoleon for assistance. Napoleon entered into an alliance with him and with the rulers of Baden and Wurtzburg.

The Austrian army, under Mack, had already occupied Ulm, when Napoleon, having crossed the Danube at Donauwerth seized Augsburg and Munich. The French were now in the rear of Mack's force and had cut his communication with the Russians, who having reached Vienna, were advancing towards him by forced marches. The Field-marshal realised then, but too late, the error he had made in allowing himself to be encircled by French troops. He tried to break out, but was defeated successively in the battles of Wertingen, Gunzberg, and Elchingen, where Marshal Ney won fame. Under increasing pressure, Mack was forced to shut himself up in Ulm with all his army, less the corps of the Archduke Ferdinand and Jellachich who escaped, the former into Bohemia, and the latter to the region round Lake Constance. Ulm was then besieged by the Emperor. It was a place which, though not heavily fortified, could nevertheless have held out for a long time thanks to its position and its large garrison, and so given the Russians time to come to its relief. But Field-marshal Mack, passing from exalted over-confidence to a profound disheartenment, surrendered to Napoleon, who had now, in three weeks, scattered, captured, or destroyed eighty thousand Austrians and freed Bavaria, where he reinstalled the Elector. We shall see, in 1813, this favour repaid by the most odious treachery.

Being now the master of Bavaria, and rid of the presence of Mack's army, the Emperor increased the pace of his advance, down the right bank of the Danube towards Vienna. He captured Passau and then Linz, where he learned that 50,000 Russians, commanded by General Koutousoff, reinforced by 40,000 Austrians, whom General Kienmayer had collected, had crossed the Danube at Vienna and had taken up a position between M”lk and St. Poelten. He was told at the same time that the Austrian army commanded by Prince Charles had been defeated by Massena in the Venetian district and was retreating via the Friuli in the direction of Vienna; and lastly that the Archduke Jean was occupying the Tyrol with several divisions. Those two princes were therefore threatening the right of the French army, while it had the Russians in front of it. To protect himself against a flank attack, the Emperor, who already had Marshal Augereau's corps in the region of Bregenz, sent Marshal Ney to attack Innsbruk and the Tyrol, and moved Marmont's corps to Loeben, in order to block Prince Charles' route from Italy. Having taken these wise precautions to protect his right flank, Napoleon, before advancing to meet the Russians, whose advance-guard had already clashed with ours at Amstetten, near to Steyer, wished to protect his left flank from any attack from those Austrians who had taken refuge in Bohemia, under the command of Archduke Ferdinand. To effect this he gave Marshal Mortier the infantry divisions of Generals Dupont and Gazan, and ordered him to cross the Danube by the bridges at Passau and Linz, and then proceed down the left bank of the river, while the bulk of the army went down the right. However, in order not to leave Marshal Mortier too isolated, Napoleon conceived the idea of gathering together on the Danube a great number of boats, which had been captured on the tributaries of the river, and forming a flotilla which, manned by men from the guard, could move down the river, keeping level with Mortier and making a link between the troops on both banks.

You may think it a little presumptuous of me to criticise one of the operations of a great captain, but I cannot refrain from commenting that the sending of Mortier to the left bank was a move which had not been sufficiently considered, and was an error which could have had very serious consequences. The Danube, Europe's largest river, is, after Passau, so wide in winter that from one bank one cannot discern a man standing on the other; it is also very deep and very fast-flowing, and it therefore provided a guarantee of perfect safety for the left flank of the French army as it marched down the right bank. Furthermore, any attack could be made only by the Archduke Ferdinand, coming from Bohemia; but he, very pleased to have escaped from the French before Ulm, had only a few troops, and they were mostly cavalry. Even if he had wished to do so, he had not the means to mount an attack which involved crossing an obstacle such as the Danube, into which he might be driven back. Whereas, by detaching two of his divisions and allowing them to be isolated across this immense river, Napoleon exposed them to the risk of being captured or exterminated. A disaster which might have been foreseen and which very nearly came about.

Field-marshal Koutousoff, had been awaiting the French with confidence, in a strong position at St. Poelten, because he believed that they were being pursued by the army of Mack; but when he heard of the surrender of this army at Ulm, he no longer felt himself strong enough to face Napoleon alone, and being unwilling to risk his troops to save the city of Vienna, he decided to put the barrier of the Danube between himself and the victor, so he crossed the river by the bridge at Krems, which he burned behind him.

He had scarcely arrived on the left bank with all his army, when he ran into the scouts of the Gazan division, which was proceeding from Dirnstein to Krems, with Marshal Mortier at its head. Koutousoff, having discovered the presence of a French corps isolated on the left bank, resolved to crush it, and to achieve this aim he attacked it head to head on the narrow road which ran along the river bank, while seizing control of the escarpments which overlook the Danube. He sent light troops to occupy Dirnstein to cut off the retreat of the Gazan division. The position of the division was made even more critical by the fact that the flotilla of boats had dropped back and there were only two little boats available, which made it impossible to bring reinforcements from the other bank.

Attacked in front and in the rear and on one of their flanks by enemies six times their number; shut in between the rocky escarpment occupied by the Russians and the depths of the Danube, the French soldiers, crowded on the narrow roadway, did not despair. The gallant Marshal Mortier set them an example, for, when it was suggested that he should take one of the boats and go over to the right bank, where he would be with the Grande Armee, and avoid giving the Russians the glory of capturing a marshal, he replied that he would die with his men, or escape over the dead bodies of the Russians!

A savage bayonet fight ensued: five thousand French were up against thirty thousand Russians: night came to add to the horrors of the combat: Gazan's division, massed in column, managed to regain Dirnstein at a moment when Dupont's division, which had remained behind opposite M”lk, alerted by the sound of gunfire, was running to their aid. Eventually the battlefield remained in French hands.

In this hand to hand fighting, where the bayonet was almost the only weapon used, our men, more adroit and agile than the giant Russians, had a great advantage; so the enemy losses amounted to some four thousand five hundred men, while ours were three thousand only. But had our divisions not been made up of seasoned soldiers, Mortier's corps would probably have been destroyed. The Emperor was well aware of this, and hastened to recall it to the right bank. What seems to me to be proof that he realised the mistake he had made in sending this corps across the river, is the fact that, although he generously rewarded the brave regiments which had fought at Dirnstein, the official bulletins scarcely mention this sanguinary affair, and it is as if one wished to conceal the results of this operation because one could find no military justification for it.

What further confirms me in the opinion which I have taken the liberty of expressing, is that in the campaign of 1809, the Emperor, when he found himself in a similar situation, did not send any troops across the river, but, keeping all his force together, he went with it to Vienna.

But let us return to the mission with which Major Massy and I were charged.

When we arrived in Vienna, Napoleon and the bulk of the army had already left the city, which they had seized without a shot being fired. The crossing of the Danube which it was necessary to effect in order to pursue the Russians and the Austrians who were retreating into Moravia, had not been disputed, thanks to a perhaps culpable deception which was carried out by Marshals Lannes and Murat. This incident, which had such a profound effect on this well-known campaign, deserves recounting.

The city of Vienna is situated on the right bank of the Danube: a small branch of that immense river passes through the city, but the main stream is half a league away; there the Danube contains a large number of islands which are connected by a long series of wooden bridges, terminated by one which, spanning the main arm of the river, reaches the left bank at a place named Spitz. The road to Moravia runs along this series of bridges. When the Austrians are opposing the crossing of a river, they have a very bad habit of leaving the bridges intact up to the very last moment, to give them a means of mounting a counter-attack against the enemy, who almost always does not allow them time to do so and takes from them the bridges which they have neglected to burn. This is what the French did during the campaign in Italy in 1796 at the memorable affairs of Lodi and Arcoli. But these examples had not served to correct the Austrians, for on leaving Vienna, which is not suited to defence, they retired to the other side of the Danube without destroying a single one of the bridges spanning this vast watercourse, and limited themselves to placing inflammable material on the platform of the main bridge, in order to set it alight when the French appeared. They had also established on the left bank, at the end of the bridge at Spitz, a powerful battery of artillery, as well as a division of six thousand men under the command of Prince D'Auersperg, a brave but not very intelligent officer. Now I must tell you that some days before the entry of the French into Vienna, the Emperor had received the Austrian general, Comte de Guilay, who came as an envoy to make peace overtures, which came to nothing. But hardly had the Emperor settled in the palace of Schoenbrunn, when General Guilay again appeared and spent more than an hour tˆte-a-tˆte with Napoleon. From this a rumour arose that an armistice had been arranged, a rumour which spread amongst the French regiments which were entering Vienna and the Austrians who were leaving to cross the Danube.

Murat and Lannes, whom the Emperor had ordered to secure the crossing of the Danube, placed Oudinot's Grenadiers behind a bushy plantation and went forward, accompanied only by some German-speaking officers. The enemy outposts withdrew, firing as they went. The French officers called out that there was an armistice, and continuing their progress, they crossed all the small bridges, without being held up. When they arrived at the main bridge, they renewed their assertion to the commander at Spitz, who did not dare to fire on two marshals, almost alone, who claimed that hostilities were suspended. However, before allowing them to go any further, he wanted to go and ask General Auersperg for orders, and while he did so, he left the post in charge of a sergeant. Lannes and Murat persuaded the sergeant that under the terms of the cease-fire, the bridge should be handed over to them, and that he should go with his men to join his officer on the left bank. The poor sergeant hesitated, he was edged back gently while the conversation continued, and by a slow but steady advance they reached, eventually, the end of the main bridge.

At this point an Austrian officer endeavored to set light to the incendiary material, but the torch was snatched from his hand, and he was told that he would be in serious trouble if he did any such thing. Next, the column of Oudinot's Grenadiers appeared and began to cross the bridge…. The Austrian gunners prepared to open fire, but the French marshals ran to the commander of the artillery and assured him that an armistice was in force, then, seating themselves on the guns, they requested the gunners to go and inform General Auersperg of their presence. General Auersperg eventually arrived and was about to order the gunners to open fire, although by now they and the Austrian troops were surrounded by the French Grenadiers, when the two marshals managed to convince him that there was a cease-fire, a principal condition of which was that the French should occupy the bridge. The unhappy general, fearing to compromise himself by the useless shedding of blood, lost his head to the point of leading away all the troops which he had been given to defend the bridges.

Without this error on the part of General Auersperg, the passage of the Danube could only have been carried out with great difficulty, and might even have been impossible; in which case Napoleon would have been unable to pursue the Russians and Austrians into Moravia, and would have failed in his campaign. That was the opinion at the time, and it was confirmed three years later when, the Austrians having burned the bridges, to secure a passage we were forced to fight the two battles of Essling and Wagram, which cost us more than thirty thousand men, whereas in 1805 Marshals Lannes and Murat took possession of the bridges without there being a single man wounded.

Was the stratagem they employed admissible? I have my doubts. I know that in war one eases one's conscience, and that any means may be employed to ensure victory and reduce loss of life, but in spite of these weighty considerations, I do not think that one can approve of the method used to seize the bridge at Spitz, and for my part I would not care to do the same in similar circumstances.

To conclude this episode, the credulity of General Auersperg was very severely punished. A court-martial condemned him to be cashiered, dragged through the streets of Vienna on a hurdle and finally put to death at the hands of the public executioner…! A similar sentence was passed on Field-marshal Mack, to punish him for his conduct at Ulm. But in both cases the death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. They served ten years and were then released, but deprived of their position, expelled from the ranks of the nobility and rejected by their families, they died, both of them, shortly after they had been set at liberty.

The stratagem employed by Marshals Lannes and Murat having secured the crossing of the Danube, the Emperor Napoleon directed his army in pursuit of the Russians and the Austrians. Thus began the second phase of the campaign.