The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot

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A fearful tumult now arose in the immense circle by which I was
surrounded, and I was able to appreciate the inconvenience
stemming from the heterogeneous amalgamation of different peoples
which makes up the Austrian Empire, and in consequence, the
Austrian army. All the Hussars were Hungarian; the Blankensteins
therefore approved the proposal made by a leader of their own
nationality, but the Dragoons were German and the Uhlans were
Polish; the Hungarian could make no nationalistic appeal to them,
who, in this difficult situation listened only to their own
officers; these officers declared that they thought themselves
bound by the capitulation which Field-marshal Jellachich had
signed and did not wish, by their departure, to worsen his
position or that of their comrades who were already the hands of
the French, who would be within their rights to send them all
back to France as prisoners of war, if a part of the Austrian
forces violated the agreement. To this the colonel replied that
when the Commander-in-Chief of an army looses his head, fails in
his duty and delivers his troops to the enemy, his juniors have
no need to consult anything but their courage and their devotion
to their country. Then the colonel, brandishing his sabre in one
hand, while with the other he seized the regimental standard,
cried out, "Go then Dragoons! Go! Go! Yield to the French your
dishonoured standards, and the arms which the Emperor gave us for
his defence. As for us, the bold Hussars, we are off to rejoin
our sovereign, to whom we can once more show with honour our
unstained colours, and the swords of fearless soldiers!" Then,
drawing close to me, and casting a look of disdain on the Uhlans
and Dragoons, he added, "I am sure that if this young Frenchman
found himself in our position and had to choose between your
conduct and mine, he would take the more courageous course; for
the French love honour and reputation as much as their country."
Having said this, the old Hungarian sheathed his sabre, dug in
his spurs, and leading his regiment at the gallop, he careered
into the distance, where he soon disappeared. There was some
truth in both the arguments which I had heard, but that of the
old Hungarian seemed the more valid because it was in conformity
with the interests of his country; I then secretly approved of
his behaviour, but I could not, of course advise the Dragoons and
Uhlans to follow his example; that would have been to step out of
my role and fail in my duty. I maintained a strict neutrality in
this discussion, and when the Hussars had left, I asked the
colonels of the other two regiments to follow me, and we took the
road for Lindau.

On the beach beside the lake, we found Marshals Augereau and
Jellachich, as well as the French forces and the Austrian
infantry regiments which had not followed the Prince de Rohan. On
learning from me that the Blankenstein Hussars, having refused to
recognise the capitulation, were heading for Moravia both
marshals flew into a rage: Marshal Augereau because he feared
that these Hussars might cause havoc in the rear of the French
army, since the route which they would follow would take them
through areas where the Emperor, in the course of his march on
Vienna, had left many dressing stations full of wounded;
artillery parks, etc. But the Hungarian colonel did not think it
was part of his duty to advertise his presence by any surprise
attack, as he was only too anxious to get out of a country
bristling with French arms. By avoiding all our positions, moving
always on minor roads, hiding by day in the woods and marching
rapidly at night, he managed to reach the frontier of Moravia
without trouble, and joined an Austrian army corps which occupied
the area. As for the troops who remained with Field-marshal
Jellachich, having laid down their arms, surrendered their flags
and standards and handed over their horses, they became prisoners
on parole for one year, and made off in dismal silence for the
interior of Germany, to make their way sadly to Bohemia. I
remembered, when I saw them, the valiant words of the old
colonel, and I think I saw on the faces of many of these Uhlans
and Dragoons a regret that they had not followed the old warrior,
and an unhappiness when they compared the heroic position of the
Blankensteins with their own humiliation.

Among the trophies which Jellachich's corps was forced to hand
over were seventeen flags and two standards, which Marshal
Augereau, as was usual, hastened to send to the Emperor, in the
care of two aides-de-camp. Major Massy and I were detailed for
this task, and we left the same evening in a fine carriage with,
in front of us, a wagon containing the flags and standards, in
the charge of an N.C.O. We headed for Vienna via Kempten,
Brauneau, Munich, Lenz and Saint-Poelten. Some leagues before
this last town, following the banks of the Danube, we admired the
superb Abbey of M”lk, one of the richest in the world. It was
here, four years later that I ran the greatest danger, and earned
the praise of the Emperor, for having performed before his eyes
the finest feat of arms of my military career; as you will see
when we come to the campaign of 1809.

Chap. 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.

Chap. 25.

The Russian marshal Koutousoff was heading via Hollabrunn for
Brno in Moravia, in order to join the second army which was led
by the Emperor Alexander in person; but on approaching
Hollabrunn, he was alarmed to discover that the troops of Lannes
and Murat were already occupying the town and cutting off his
means of retreat. To get out of this fix, the aged marshal,
making use, in his turn, of trickery, sent General Prince
Bagration as an envoy to Marshal Murat, whom he assured that an
aide-de-camp of the Emperor was on his way to Napoleon in order
to conclude an armistice, and that, without doubt, peace would
shortly follow.

Prince Bagration was a very amiable man, he knew exactly how to
flatter Murat, so that he in turn was deceived into accepting an
armistice, in spite of the observations of Lannes, who wished to
fight but had to obey Murat, who was his superior officer.

The truce lasted for thirty-six hours; and while Murat was
inhaling the incense which the crafty Russian lavished on him,
Koutousoff's army made a detour and concealing its movement
behind a screen of low hills, escaped from danger, and went on to
take up, beyond Hollabrunn, a strong position which opened the
road to Moravia and assured his retreat and his junction with the
second Russian army which was encamped between Znaim and Brno.
Napoleon was still in the palace of Schoenbrunn, and was
furiously angry when he heard that Murat had allowed himself to
be bamboozled by Prince Bagration, and had accepted an armistice
without his orders, and he commanded him to attack Koutousoff
immediately.

Now the situation of the Russians had changed greatly to their
advantage, so they repelled the French most vigorously. The town
of Hollabrunn, taken and re-taken several times, set on fire by
the mortars, filled with the dead and dying, remained finally in
French possession. The Russians retired in the direction of Brno;
our troops followed them and took possession of this town without
a fight, although it was fortified and dominated by the
well-known citadel of Spielberg.

The Russian armies and the remains of the Austrian troops were
united in Moravia; the Emperor Napoleon, in order to deliver the
final blow, arrived in Brno, the capital of the province.

My comrade Massy and I followed after him, but we moved slowly
and with much difficulty, firstly because the post-horses were on
their last legs, and then because of the great quantity of
troops, guns, ammunition wagons, baggage, etc. with which the
roads were obstructed. We were obliged to stop for twenty-four
hours at Hollabrunn, while we waited for a passage to be cleared
through the streets, destroyed by fire and littered with planks
and beams and the debris of furniture, still alight. This
unfortunate town had been so completely burned that we were
unable to find a single house to provide shelter!

During our enforced stay, we were confronted and distressed by
the most horrible and shocking spectacle. The wounded, mainly
Russians, had taken refuge during the fighting in the houses
which were soon set ablaze. All who could walk fled at the
approach of this new danger, but the crippled and gravely injured
were burned alive in the ruins! Many had attempted to escape the
fire by crawling along the ground, but the flames had followed
them into the streets,where one could see a multitude of these
wretched victims half consumed by fire, some of them still
breathing! The bodies of the men and horses killed in the battle
had also been roasted, so that for several leagues around the
town there was a sickening stench of burning flesh! ... There are
countrysides and towns which because of their situation are
destined to serve as battlefields, and Hollabrun is one of them,
because it offers an excellent military position; thus it was
that the damage done by the fire of 1805 had scarcely been
repaired, when I saw the place again, four years later, once more
on fire and littered with the half-roasted bodies of the dead and
dying; as you will see from my description of the campaign of
1809.