Evil in a Mask (65 page)

Austria would, therefore, have to fight alone. However, she had one consolation. At Erfurt, Alexander had promised Napoleon that, should Austria start hostilities while he was occupied in Spain, Russia would intervene. But the Czar was still fully occupied with wresting Finland from Sweden; and, now that he had cooled towards the French, that provided a good excuse for not going to their aid. He had indicated to
Count Schwarzenberg that, should he have to keep his word, only a token force would be sent.

The French army was believed to number eight hundred thousand men. But three hundred thousand of them were now in Spain, two hundred thousand in France and sixty thousand in Italy. It was estimated that not more than two hundred and thirty thousand were in Germany and Poland, whereas Austria could put into the field two hundred and eighty-three thousand regulars and a further three hundred and ten thousand partially-trained militia. Moreover, Napoleon's army was very far from being the magnificent Grand Army that had threatened England with invasion in 1805. More than half of it now consisted of Rhinelanders, Dutch, Danes and Poles; while the French units contained a very high proportion of young conscripts called up a year, and even two years, before they would normally have been liable to serve.

On February 25th, Austria began her strategic concentrations. The Archduke Charles, unquestionably their best General, was to command the main army and endeavour to defeat the French army in Germany, which was commanded by Marshal Davoust. A second army, under the command of the Archduke John, was to strike down into Italy with the object of regaining the Tyrolese and Venetian lands, which had been reft from Austria after her last defeat. A third army, under the Archduke Ferdinand, was to invade the Grand Duchy of Warsaw.

Unfortunately for the Austrians, in spite of the reforms introduced by the Archduke Charles, their military machinery was still slow and cumbersome. It was not until early April that they were ready to strike, and the Archduke issued his proclamation:

‘The freedom of Europe has sought refuge beneath our banners. Soldiers, your victories will break her chains. Your German brothers, who are now in the ranks of the enemy, wait for their deliverance.'

This eloquent appeal met with an enthusiastic response. Between them, Stadion and the Archduke had abolished a good part of the hidebound bureaucracy, and ousted the inefficient
Generals who had previously held commands only owing to their noble lineage, or through Court favour. Now, the troops had been given similar opportunities to those Napoleon had held out to the French, when he had declared, ‘Every private carries in his knapsack a Marshal's baton.'

Moreover, as in the case of Spain, Catholic Austria was indignant at Napoleon's treatment of the Pope, in having the previous year annexed a large part of His Holiness' States of the Church.

Towards the end of March, Austria's concentrations were complete and the war opened well for her. On April 9th, the Archduke John invaded Italy and on the 16th defeated a Franco-Italian army under Eugene de Beauharnais. Meanwhile, he had despatched General Chastler with ten thousand men into the Tyrol, against the Bavarians who, as Napoleon's allies, had received that territory as part of the spoils of victory by the Peace of Pressburg.

The deeply religious Tyrolese were eager both to avenge the insults to the Pope and again to become Austrian subjects. In their villages these hardy mountaineers rose almost to a man, armed themselves and began to attack the Bavarian garrisons. In four days, the Bavarians had been driven out of all northern Tyrol, and the Austrian flag again flew over Innsbruck.

The Archduke Ferdinand was equally successful. Advancing rapidly into Poland, on April 19th he defeated the Franco-Polish army under Prince Poniatowski and, on the 22nd, occupied Warsaw.

However, the Archduke Charles was not so fortunate. He had assembled six corps in Bohemia and two corps in upper Austria, with the object of invading Bavaria. Davoust was in difficulties, because his troops were scattered far and wide over Germany. But the French Marshals knew far better how to use time than did their enemies. While the Austrians, owing to bad supply organisation, were advancing only by half-day marches, Davoust succeeded in concentrating the major part of his forces on the line Munich-Ratisbon-Würzberg. Yet, with only eighty-nine thousand men, he was far inferior to the army
the Archduke could bring against him. His situation was then rendered more desperate by an order issued from Strasbourg by Berthier, whom the Emperor had placed in command of the operations in Germany. It was that Davoust should concentrate round Ratisbon.

Roger's relations with Lisala had been deteriorating from day to day, so it was a considerable relief to him when, on April 13th, he left with Napoleon for the front. On arriving at Donauworth, the Emperor swiftly corrected the errors that Berthier had made and, at a risk that he did not at the time appreciate, ordered Davoust to march his four divisions across the enemy's front. At Haussen, on the 19th, the Marshal was fiercely attacked but, by magnificent generalship, fought his way through. There ensued two days of violent conflict between widely separated forces. Then, on the 22nd, at Eckmühl, Napoleon inflicted a major defeat on the Archduke.

The Austrian centre was shattered. The left, under General Hiller, was driven south-east, towards the river Isar. The main body, under the Archduke, retreated north and, on the 23rd, succeeded in getting across to the left bank of the Danube. But in the five days of fighting in the neighbourhood of Ratisbon, the Austrians had lost forty thousand men in killed, wounded and prisoners.

One of Napoleon's great strengths as a commander of armies was the way in which he succeeded in driving troops, already exhausted by battle, to follow up a defeated enemy. With ruthless determination, he pursued Hiller towards Vienna. On May 13th, the Emperor again rode into the Imperial city as a conqueror.

Nevertheless, the Archduke's army had escaped destruction. Having succeeded in getting across the Danube to the left bank, it was joined by the surviving regiments of Hiller's force and the garrison that had been driven from Vienna. Again a formidable army, it occupied the
Marchfeld
, some five miles south-east of the capital. It was on this historic field that Rudolph of Habsburg had defeated the famous Bohemian warrior-King Ottakar II in 1276, and so founded the Austrian Empire.

The position not only raised the morale of the troops by its historic association, but was an extremely difficult one to attack; as the river there was from two to four and a half miles wide. Between the banks lay a dozen or more islands, much the largest of which was Lobau. Napoleon decided to cross and occupied the villages of Aspern and Essling, but he was not aware that the Austrians were so close at hand. On May 21st, Bessières had barely taken up his position with only seventeen thousand infantry, when they were fallen upon by eighty thousand infantry and fifteen thousand horse. Nevertheless, Lannes succeeded in holding Essling, and it was not until dusk that the Austrians had driven Masséna from the centre of Aspern. The Emperor's attempt to break through the enemy's centre by a great cavalry charge failed and, by nightfall, the French positions were almost surrounded.

In the small hours, Masséna reopened the battle and drove the Austrians out of Aspern. Meanwhile, the Imperial Guard and Oudinot's Grenadiers had crossed the river. Desperate fighting ensued all through the 22nd. Under one determined onslaught some Austrian battalions began to waver, but the Archduke seized the banner of the Zach regiment and flung himself into the fray. His example rallied his troops, and the French were driven back. In a magnificent charge the French cavalry routed the Austrian cavalry, but were robbed of the fruits of their achievement by themselves being driven back by Austrian Grenadiers.

During the morning, Napoleon received the alarming news that the largest of the bridges which he had built across the Danube had been set on fire, and that others were being swept away by trees and barges sent down the flooded river. This meant annihilation for the French should they fail to hold their own. They were now fighting for survival. Essling was lost, but regained. Aspern finally fell to the Austrians. By then both armies were utterly exhausted. By superhuman efforts the French engineers had repaired a number of bridges. That night the Emperor withdrew the remains of his army into the island of Lobau.

The slaughter had been appalling, approaching that of Eylau.
Austria lost twenty-five thousand and France twenty thousand men, among them the irreplaceable Marshal Lannes. The finest assault leader in the army, he had a hundred times led his men up scaling ladders and through breaches made by cannon in the walls of fortresses. He had been wounded more than twenty times, and it was said that bullets only bent, never shattered, his bones; but, at last, he had received a wound that was mortal. Napoleon tenderly embraced the dying Marshal, but Lannes' last words were to reproach him for his boundless ambition which was causing such a terrible loss of French lives. Like many others, for a long time past his heart had not been in the Emperor's wars, and he had continued to serve only out of a sense of duty. A staunch Republican and convinced atheist, he had often openly criticised Napoleon for creating a new aristocracy, and for his rapprochement with the Church.

In this last matter, having paid lip-service to religion in order to gain the support of a large part of the French people, the Emperor had now become so convinced of his absolute supremacy that he could afford to humble the Pope. In Vienna only a week before, on May 17th, he had issued a decree depriving His Holiness of all temporal power, and annexed that part of the States of the Church that he had spared the previous year. Asserting himself to be the ‘successor of Charlemagne', he relegated the Pope to merely Bishop of Rome, with a stipend of two million francs. When Pius VII protested and excommunicated him, he retaliated by having him arrested and taken as a prisoner from Rome to Florence.

The battle of Aspern-Essling had a great effect on public opinion throughout the whole of Europe. Eylau had in fact been a stalemate, but Napoleon had been able to claim it as a victory because, on the night following the battle, the Russians had withdrawn. Aspern-Essling was also a stalemate, but in that case it was the French who had withdrawn, leaving the Austrians in possession of the battlefield. The belief that Napoleon, when commanding in person, could not be defeated had at last been deflated.

Had the Archduke Charles been in a position to attack the
island of Lobau next day, it could have brought Napoleon's Empire crashing about his ears; for, not only had the majority of the French no more fight left in them, but they were without food and had run out of ammunition. But the Austrians, too, were utterly exhausted; so, under flags of truce, while the battlefield was being cleared of its mounds of corpses, a seven-week Armistice was agreed upon.

While the French army remained on Lobau, the Emperor installed himself in the Palace of Schönbrunn, just outside Vienna, and sent for his Court. During June, by feats of brilliant organisation, he brought from all quarters large reinforcements and huge quantities of stores and ammunition.

Meanwhile, from both south and north bad news for the French kept coming in.

Of the three British Generals court martialled for the Convention of Cintra, Sir Arthur Wellesley alone was acquitted. Lord Castlereagh had a great belief in his abilities and induced the Cabinet to send the future Duke of Wellington back to the Peninsula as Commander-in-Chief of a considerable army.

Napoleon had laid down the strategy to be followed by his Marshals. Gouvion St. Cyr was to clean up Catalonia, Victor was to destroy the Spanish army in Andalusia, Ney was to hold down Galicia while Soult advanced from there to take Oporto, then Lisbon. In mid-March Victor crossed the Tagus and defeated the Spanish regulars, but was so weakened that, without reinforcements, which King Joseph in Madrid could not send him, decided that he dare advance no further. Towards the end of the month Soult arrived in front of Oporto. Led by the Bishop, thirty thousand insurgents put up a most heroic resistance; but, lacking even a semblance of organisation, were massacred by the thousand. Having captured the city, but still surrounded on all sides by hordes of enemies, Soult, too, felt he dared advance no further.

Such was the situation when, on April 22nd, Wellesley landed in Lisbon. With twenty-five thousand British troops and sixteen thousand Portuguese, he decided that he was strong enough to defeat first Soult, then Victor. Marching northwards, he carried out a most daring crossing of the Douro
where the cliffs were so steep that Soult had left the river unguarded. Taken by surprise, the French Marshal was chased out of Oporto, then found himself cut off by dispositions Wellesley had made. In despair, he burned his baggage, sacrificed his plunder and abandoned his artillery. The remnants of his shattered corps, reduced to a starving rabble, made their way as best they could by goat tracks over the mountains back to Galicia.

No such major disaster as the destruction of an entire French Army Corps took place in northern Europe; but there were portents of trouble to come. Sickened by the pusillanimity of his King, Frederick von Schill, who commanded a regiment of Prussian Hussars, left Berlin with them on April 28th. He endeavoured to surprise the French and take from them the great fortress of Magdeburg. In that he failed, but in other actions he met with considerable success, including the capture of Stralsund. But there he was overwhelmed by Napoleon's Danish and Dutch troops and mortally wounded.

Schill's gallant exploits raised the patriotic fervour of his countrymen to fever-pitch and incited the young Duke of Brunswick to follow his example. He had formed a corps of volunteers in Bohemia. With them he invaded Saxony and, on June nth, captured Dresden. After several times defeating the troops of Napoleon's brother, King Jerome, in Westphalia, the Duke decided to fight his way right across Germany. After many perilous encounters, he succeeded, and with his men was taken off by British ships to England. His little troop became the nucleus of the ‘King's German Legion', that later fought with great gallantry under Wellington in Spain.