BOOK IV. CHAPTER IX. FOREIGN HISTORY: Military Preparations of the House of Austria-Rupture between France and Austria-Passage of the Inn by the Archduke Charles-Departure of Bonaparte from Paris to place himself at the Head of his Army in Germany-Battle of Ebensberg-Fall of Landshut into the Hands of the French-Napoleon and the Archduke meet for the first Time at Eckmuhl, where the Austrians sustain a signal Defeat-Fall of Ratisbon-Advance of the French Army to Vienna-Battle of Esling-Operations in Poland and the North of Germany-Campaign in Italy-Battle of Wagram-Retreat of the Austrian Army-Termination of the Fourth Punic War by an Armistice-Treaty of Peace-Gallant Resistance of the Tyrolese-Annexation of the Papal Territories to France-Excommunication of the Emperor Napoleon-Imperial Divorce-Revolution in Sweden. AT the critical and gloomy moment in which the last hopes of Spain seemed to be extinCHAP. IX. guished, when her capital was occupied by the invaders, her armies defeated and dispersed, 1809 and the troops of her British ally obliged to seek safety on board vessels sent to convey them to their own shores; the important events which took place in Germany, brightened for a time the political horizon. Austria, whose strength had been broken by the disasters of Ulm and Austerlitz, and whose dominion and resources had been curtailed by the peace of Presburg, resolved to convert to her advantage the war in which France was engaged with Spain, and to make a grand effort to regain her ancient independence and power. From the period of the conferences at Erfurt, till Bonaparte crossed the Pyrenees for the purpose of putting himself at the head of his armies in Spain, Austria went on completing her military preparations. These advances towards a state of hostility were not viewed by France with indifference, and the watchful jealousy of Bonaparte was expressed by his ministers in reproaches and threats. Austria was charged with having opened the harbour of Trieste to the English; her vessels, loaded with British manufactures or the produce of the English colonies, were protected in the passage from Malta to the Levant by ships of war; an official messenger from the Spanish patriots was permitted to land at Trieste; accident, it was asserted, had put the French government in possession of a formal promise made by the cabinet of Vienna to assist the Spanish Junta with one hundred thousand men ; and providence itself had interfered to unveil the hostile intentions of the Emperor Francis, by permitting the King of England to allude to them in no ambiguous language, in the official declaration published by that sovereign on the rupture of the negociations for peace. From Valladolid, Bonaparte sent his mandate to the princes of the confederation of the Rhine, to furnish their contingents, and to hold themselves in readiness for war; and soon afterwards he left Spain and returned to Paris. The In the month of March, 1809, the preparations for war were prosecuted by both parties with uncommon vigour and activity. The court of Vienna, as if sensible of the causes to which in a great measure its former misfortunes had been owing, adopted in almost every respect a different line of conduct from that which had been pursued in former wars with France: having placed the army, in point of numbers, on what was deemed an adequate establishment, continued and zealous efforts were next made towards the organization and discipline requisite to give efficacy to numerical strength. blind and ruinous policy which had hitherto made advancement or rank to depend upon antiquity of birth and illustrious descent, was in a great measure relaxed. Different officers, who had distinguished themselves in former campaigns by superior skill or courage, were advanced to a higher rank, and placed in a more extensive sphere of action. The Austrian army was divided into nine corps, each consisting of from thirty to forty thousand men. The Archduke Charles, freed from the interference of the aulic council, was appointed generalissimo; and six out of the nine corps were placed under his immediate command; the seventh corps was sent under the Archduke Ferdinand into Poland; and the eighth and ninth to Italy, under the Archduke John. There were also two corps of reserve, one of them consisting of twenty thousand men, commanded by Prince John of Lichtenstein, and the other of ten thousand men, under General Kinmayer; exclusive of the partizan corps and the landwehr, or militia, and by which the force at the disposal of the commander-in-chief, was swelled to four hundred thousand men. The force on which Bonaparte principally relied at the commencement of the war, consisted of the troops of Bavaria, Wirtemburg, Saxony, and the other contingents from the confederation of the Rhine. The Bavarians were formed into three divisions, under the Duke of Dantzic, to whom the temporary command of the allied troops was confided till the arrival of Bonaparte. In the mean time, the whole of the north and west of Germany, and the interior of France, were stripped of troops, which proceeded by rapid marches towards the banks of the Danube. On the side of Italy, Prince Eugene, the Viceroy of that country, had concentrated a formidable army; and the Saxon troops, under the Prince of Ponte Corvo, were stationed in the neighbourhood of Dresden, to protect that capital from the Austrian army in Bohemia. Before the actual commencement of hostilities, the Archduke Charles issued a proclamation of war, in the form of an address to his soldiers, by which they were informed, that the protection of their country demanded their services, and summoned them to new scenes of honour and glory. On the 9th of April, the On the 9th of April, the archduke, having established his head-quarters at Dintz, in the archduchy of Austria, sent formal notice to the French general commanding in Bavaria, that he had received orders from his august brother, the Emperor Francis, to advance with the troops under his command, and to treat as enemies all who should oppose him. This notice served as an intimation to the King of Bavaria, who, quitting his capital, repaired to Augsburg. On the following day the Austrians threw a bridge of boats over the Inn, between Brannau and Scharding, and after crossing that river, advanced slowly into Bavaria, On the 12th Bonaparte learned by the telegraph, that the Austrians had crossed the Inn; and in the evening of that day he quitted Paris, and arrived at Donawarth on the 17th; from which place he removed his head-quarters to Ingolstadt. On the 19th the Duke of Auerstadt advanced to the village of Pressing, where he met a division of the Austrian army; and an engagement immediately took place, which ended in the defeat of the latter. On the same day another French corps attacked an Austrian division in front, while the Bavarian troops, under the command of the Duke of Dantzic, fell upon their rear, and completed their rout. These partial and insignificant attacks were made by the French generals, apparently for the purpose of preparing the way for a general engagement, and to try the steadiness and courage of their German 1809 allies. Bonaparte, during the few days he had BOOK IV. passed with the army, had made himself completely acquainted with its positions; and had so CHAP. IX. far ascertained the situation of the country, as to be able to take advantage of the errors of his enemy. The Archduke Louis and General Keller had very imprudently drawn their divisions to so great a distance from the other corps of the Austrian army, as at once to present a weak point of attack to the French, and to expose the troops under the Archduke Charles to disorder or destruction. Bonaparte, perceiving this mistake, resolved to profit by it, and immediately attacked the archduke in front at Ebensberg. A brigade of light infantry, two battalions of horse artillery, and nearly the whole of the cavalry, commenced the attack: the Austrians having taken up their position on broken and intersected ground, were quickly dislodged; the infantry, chiefly composed of the troops of Wirtemburg and Bavaria, formed in column; and the Austrians, compelled to fall back, retreated in all directions, and in extreme disorder, before the victorious confederates, who, in this battle, took eight standards, twelve pieces of cannon, and eight thousand prisoners. The flank of the Austrian army having been completely laid open by the battle of Ebensberg, Bonaparte lost not a moment in advancing to Landshut. The Austrian cavalry, which had formed before the city, was attacked and driven back by the Duke of Istria; the same fate awaited the infantry; and the town, with thirty pieces of cannon, nine thousand prisoners, and all the magazines established at that place, fell into the hands of tl enemy. At two o'clock in the afternoon of the 22d, Bonaparte arrived opposite Eckmuhl, where four corps of the Austrians, amounting to one hundred and ten thousand men, under the immediate command of the Archduke Charles, were already posted. Never before had these chiefs been opposed to each other, and as neither of them had ever yet experienced a defeat, the utmost confidence reigned in their respective armies. Bonaparte's military eye immediately perceived that the left wing of the Austrian army was disadvantageously post. ed. This wing he ordered the Duke of Montebello to attack, while the front of the Austrians was opposed by the main body of the French. The contest was long and obstinate, but at the close of the day, the left wing of the archduke's army was turned, and being driven from all his positions, he was compelled to retreat. A large body of the Austrians, endeavouring to make a stand, under the covert of the woods in the neighbourhood of Ratisbon, were driven into the plain, and suffered dreadfully from dreadfully from the French cavalry. An 1809 BOOK IV. attempt to cover the retreat of the main body of the army by the cavalry, was equally unCUAP. IX. successful; the covering corps were atacked on both wings, but after maintaining their ground for a considerable length of time, they were at length obliged to give way, and to seek their safety in flight. The Archduke Charles narrowly escaped being taken prisoner, and it was entirely owing to the fleetness of his horse that the Austrian commander in person did not serve to swell the trophies of the enemy. Under cover of the darkness of the night, the broken and discomfited divisions of the Austrian army collected at Ratisbon. At this place they endeavoured to make a stand; but after three successive charges, they gave way, leaving the field covered with eight thousand of their slain. The French troops, following up their successes, entered the city through a breach in the fortifications; here a sanguinary engagement took place, in which six Austrian regiments were either cut to pieces or taken prisoners; and the remainder, not having had time to break down the bridge, were closely pursued to the left bank of the Rhine. In these battles, Bonaparte pursued his usual plan, of breaking the enemy's forces into detached parts, and then attacking them separately; and the Austrians, uninstructed by experience, had so disposed their troops as to favour his operations. At Ebensberg, the two divisions of the Archduke Louis and General Keller were beat separately; at Landshut, Bonaparte broke through the centre of their communications, and took their magazines and artillery; and in the battle of Eckmull, he defeated the reinaining divisions of the Austrian army of the Danube, except that of General Bellegarde, which did not join the archduke till the day after his disaster. In the battles of Eckmuhl and Ratisbon the French army took upwards of twenty thousand prisoners, and the greater part of the Austrian artillery; and in the short space of five days, the Austrians had lost forty thousand men, and one hundred pieces of cannon. The defeat of the Austrian armies had laid open their capital to the invaders, and on the 10th of May, Bonaparte, without encountering any formidable resistance in his way from Ratisbon, appeared before the gates of Vienna. The Archduke Maximilian, to whom the command of the city was intrusted, animated and encouraged the citizens to resistance, as long as the imperfect nature of the fortifications, and their un skilfulness in the art of war, would permit. For four and twenty hours the French howitzers played upon the town; their fire, though destructive, did not shake the constancy of the inhabitants. When, however, the enemy had succeeded in crossing the smaller branches of the Danube, by means of the numerous craft which are constantly on that river, and when the communication with the left bank was on the point of being cut off, surrender became indispensable, and the regular troops, amounting to about four thousand, effected their retreat by means of the great bridge of Taba, to which they soon afterwards set fire. The emperor, in anticipation of the advance of the French to Vienna, had quitted that city soon after the defeat of the archduke, and had taken up his abode at Znaim in Moravia. After the battle of Eckmuhl, the Archduke Charles crossed to the north side of the Danube, and retreating in the direction of Bohemia, attempted to gain the capital by forced marches before the arrival of the French. But the capture of Vienna was an object of too much importance not to be aimed at by Bonaparte with all his powers, and when the archduke had advanced to Meissau, and before he could form a junction with General Keller, he learned, to his extreme mortification, that the Archduke Maximilian had been obliged to capi tulate with the French for the surrender of the city. Deprived by this capture of a point of support for the operations of his army, the archduke fixed his head-quarters on the 16th of May at Enzersdorf, the chain of his out-posts extending on the right as far as Krems, while Presburg, lower down the river, was occupied by his left. The advanced guards were at the same time pushed forward on the banks of the Danube, and the cavalry was posted on the mar gin of a small rivulet, on ground covered and partly concealed by bushes. Bonaparte lost not a moment in forming the determination to attack the Archduke Charles in his new position, and for this purpose the French army was marched down the south bank of the river to Ebersdorf, where two islands of unequal dimensions divide the river into three branches, of the average breadth of about two hundred yards.* On the 19th of May the French engineers threw two bridges from the right bank of the Danube to the smaller island; and on the 20th two other bridges were erected from that island to the Isle of In-der-Lobau, which forms a convenient rendezvous for troops, and * See Sketch at page 111. It will always be understood that the right of a river is the bank to the right of any body floating down its stream and as the Danube rises in Suabia, and passing Vienna eastward, empties itself into the Black Sea, the bank occupied at this time by the French was the right, and that occupied by the Austrians the left of the river. In-der-Lobau is about eight English miles in length, and four in breadth. where Bonaparte fixed his head quarters. In three hours, a bridge, consisting of fifteen pontoons, was thrown over that arm of the river which separates Lobau from the Marsh Field, and the archduke having formed the resolution not to interrupt the passage of the enemy, they were permitted to extend themselves along the left bank of the river without molestation. Bonaparte was accordingly left at liberty to fix on the field of battle, and he immediately determined to post the right wing of his army on the village of Essling, and the left on the neighbouring village of Aspern. On the 21st, at day-break, the Archduke Charles formed his army in two lines on the rising ground behind Gerasdorf, near the BisamHill. Between the Austrian army and the Danube was an extensive plain, which, from the even and unobstructed nature of its surface, appeared destined to become the theatre of a general engagement. The Archduke Charles, having duly considered the advantageous position of the French army, and the difficulties he had to surmount, ordered the attack to be made in five columns. 1809 the upper part of the village, and maintained BOOK IV. The third column endeavoured to take The 1st col. consisted of 19 batt. and 22 squadrons. my's cavalry had succeeded in turning both 2d, 20 16 103 battalions. 138 squadrons. Constituting a force of 75,000 effective men Of artillery there were eighteen batteries of brigade, thirteen of posítion, and eleven of horse artillery; in the aggregate two hundred and eighty pieces of ordnance of different calibres. The possession of Aspern was essentially necessary, in order to enable the Austrian artillery to play with effect upon the centre of the enemy's lines, and the army being put into motion exactly at twelve o'clock, the first and second columns were ordered to attack that village. The contest here was most obstinate and murderous in every street, every house, and every outbuilding, the battle raged with nnexampled fury; every wall was an impedi, ment to the assailants, and a rampart for the attacked; the steeple, atties, and cellars, were to be conquered before either party could style himself master of the place; and for seven hours the conflict continued, each army rivalling the other in courage and perseverance. Scarcely had the Austrians succeeded in gaining possession of one part of the village, when the French poured in strong reinforcements, and dislodged them at another; at length, the second column, combining its movements and attacks with those of the first, made itself master of the wings of this column, and in the confi- The fourth and fifth columns of the Aus- BOOK IV. the French army; while the grenadier corps, which had not had any share in the first day's CHAP. IX. engagement, was ordered to advance from its position near Gerasdorf, to reinforce the Aus1809 trians, and the night was too short to complete their respective preparations for the second day's tragedy. The character of Bonaparte left no doubt, that on the morrow all his military talents would be stretched to retrieve the glory he had lost, and to compensate for the disappointment he had sustained. During the battle of the 21st, the archduke had ordered fire-ships to be sent down the river, and these vessels had been so well managed and directed, that the two bridges which connected the island of Lobau with the small island, and that island with the southern bank of the Danube, were destroyed. By the destruction of the bridges Bonaparte was rendered less able to repair the disasters and losses he had sustained; and in case the battle of the succeeding day should prove decidedly adverse, his retreat, it was apprehended, would be completely cut off. In this point of view, the burning down of the bridges might justly be considered as highly advantageous to the Austrians; but on the other hand, it led the archduke to expect a most obstinate defence from an army placed in such a situation of peril. At four o'clock in the morning of the 22d the battle re-commenced, and the Duke of Rivoli again possessed himself of the village of Aspern. The regiments of Klebeck were now directed to make another effort to regain the village; but after a desperate contest, carried on for upwards of an hour in the midst of conflagrations, the Austrians were at length obliged to give way. The regiment of Benyowsky now rushed in, and at the first onset gained possession of the church-yard, the walls of which were immediately destroyed, by order of General Hiller, and the church, and the parsonage-house, soon after shared the same fate. This regiment, supported by some battalions under General Bianchi, succeeded in establishing itself at the entrance of the village, and maintained this position against the repeated attacks of the flower of the French army. The Archduke Charles was now enabled to act on the offensive; the corps of the Austrian General Bellegarde, having its right wing resting on Aspern, and its centre and left towards Essling, by degrees gained the right flank of the enemy; while the artillery, stationed near the former village in such a manner as to command the intervening space, was brought to bear on his left flank: thus attacked and exposed, the French army was compelled to give way, and retire towards the Danube. While the division of Count Bellegarde was engaged at Aspern, the French cavalry, by a desperate effort. endeavoured to break in between the Austrian cavalry, commanded by Prince Leichtenstein, and the left wing of the Prince of Hohenzollern. Here the Archduke Charles particularly distinguished himself: the battalion of Zach seeming disposed to give way, he seized its colours, placed himself at its head, and inspired the whole army with the same enthusiasm with which he himself was animated. In the midst of this attack by the French cavalry, the Prince Hohenzollern, perceived on his left wing, near Essling, an opening in the French line, formed during the heat of the engagement of this circumstance he immediately took advantage, by ordering thither a regiment in three divisions, which succeeded in gaining and maintaining their position till the arrival of the grenadiers of reserve, by whose co-operation they were enabled to turn and attack the centre of the enemy, The only post which the French were now able to maintain was the village of Essling, which was attacked by Prince Rosenberg, and defended by the Duke of Montebello. attack was made with redoubled bravery, and the Austrians pushed into the village with irresistible impetuosity; still, however, they found it impossible to maintain this post. Five times did these gallant troops rush up to the houses burning within, and placed in a state of defence; but all their efforts were fruitless, for their antagonists fought the fight of despair. The In the night between the 22d and the 23d the French accomplished their retreat to Lobau, and at three o'clock in the morning their rearguard evacuated Essling, and all the positions they had held on the left bank of the Danube. Thus terminated a conflict of two days, which will ever be memorable in the military annals of the world. In this dreadful battle the loss of the enemy was prodigious; it can only be aocounted for by the effect of the concentric fire on an exceedingly confined field of battle, where two hundred pieces of cannon crossed one another; and calculated by the following authentic data: the Duke of Montebello, Generals d'Espagne, St. Hilaire, and Albuquerque, were killed; Massena, Bessiéres, Molitor, Boudet, Legrand, Lassalle, and the two brothers Legrange, were wounded; and Generals Durosnel and Fouler made prisoners. Upwards of 7,000 men, and an immense number of horses, were buried on the field of battle; upwards of 5,000 were conveyed to the Austrian hospitals; and in Vienna and the suburbs there were 29,773 wounded, exclusive of 2,300 who were taken prisoners. The burying of the sufferers was continued for several days, and in the figurative language of the Austrian gazette, "a pestilen |