Thunder on the Danube: 1809

Contents List of Maps, Charts, and Tables List of Illustrations Acknowledgements Preface Sources and Conventions

vi viii ix xi xv

1 War Is Unavoidable 2 What Do They Intend?

3 Austria Would Not Be So Foolish 4 It Is War 5 Eight Days in April, I: The War Opens and the Tide Turns 6 Eight Days in April, II: Four More Victories Intermezzo

1 34 73 120 158 223 304

Table of Comparative Military Ranks

306

Appendices Introductory Note 1 The Austrian Army, April 1809 2 Orders of Battle for the April Campaign in Bavaria 3 Orders of Battle for the Battle of Abensberg and the Pursuit to Landshut (20–1 April) 4 Orders of Battle for the Battle of Eggmühl (22 April) Abbreviations Notes Bibliographic Note Index

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307 309 314 337 354 366 368 486 491

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chapter 5

Eight Days in April, I: The War Opens and the Tide Turns ‘He’ was already on the road for the Danube. Learning of the Austrian invasion on the evening of 12 April, Napoleon immediately made preparations to depart.1 He met with Arch-Chancellor Cambacérès at 8 p.m., dined at 9 p.m., then took coffee in his office while dictating a series of notes and letters around 10 p.m., met with Fouché at 11 p.m. to give the minister of police final instructions on keeping Paris secure, and lay down at about midnight. GD Marie François Auguste Caffarelli woke him at 2.30 a.m. on the 13th, and by 4.20 he was seated in his travelling office coach with Josephine, heading east for war. The travelling party was small and moved rapidly despite the heaviness of the emperor’s special coach. Other than notifying the post relays to have fresh horses ready, there had been no time to make advance arrangements, and towns along the route were surprised when their sovereign passed through on the way to the Rhine. The Oudinot family was taken aback, for example, when Napoleon suddenly appeared at their door in Bar-le-Duc for a brief call on the morning of the 14th before pushing on to Strasbourg, where the party pulled up at dawn the following day. Josephine, exhausted after two straight days in the carriage, sought out a bed in the Rohan Palace, but Napoleon only stayed long enough to receive reports from GD Beaumont and consume lunch. Bidding farewell to the empress, he was in his coach and rattling his way east once again by early afternoon. In retrospect, it was potentially a poignant moment, as Napoleon would return from the Austrian war intent upon divorcing Josephine and entering into a marital alliance with the defeated House of Habsburg. But all of that lay in the future. On 15 April, his immediate concern was repulsing the Austrian invasion of Bavaria.

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Napoleon crossed the Rhine at Kehl that afternoon, making two stops as he traversed the Grand Duchy of Baden: first to see his niece, Stephanie de Beauharnais (he urged her to join Josephine in Strasbourg), and later to discuss France’s interests and the tangled intrigues of the grand ducal court with his ambassador, Louis Pierre Bignon. The next two major halts also concerned his Rheinbund allies. The first was Ludwigsburg, residence of the corpulent but forceful King Friedrich of Württemberg. Driving through the night, the emperor’s party entered Friedrich’s courtyard at 4 a.m. on 16 April where ‘everything was at the peak of excitement owing to the arrival of the imperial guest’.2 The two monarchs discussed the Austrian invasion and Friedrich asked Napoleon about his plans. ‘We will go to Vienna’, was the reply. Napoleon also used the opportunity to send dispatches in all directions, even employing Württemberg officers as couriers. By 10.30 a.m., however, the emperor was once more in his carriage, under escort by Württemberg cavalry in the absence of his own guard. His passage created a sensation. ‘The town and the villages were in motion, the entire population took itself to the highway,’ noted a French commissary official who happened upon the emperor’s route of travel, ‘Taken for members of his suite, we received the salutes addressed to his carriages.’3 Napoleon now headed for Dillingen to reassure Max Joseph of Bavaria, temporarily evicted from his capital by Jellacic’s advance.4 En route, he and his companions experienced some of the dreadful weather that had made the men of both armies miserable for the past week: when the party’s third night on the road fell, it was utterly black and a violent storm drenched the struggling staff officers and escorts. The interview with Bavaria’s king took place in the earliest hours of 17 April, the emperor telling the anxious Max Joseph that he would be able to re-enter Munich in a few days. But the halt was brief. After only an hour’s conversation, the cavalcade was pressing on for army headquarters at Donauwörth, passing through the gates of the astonished little town at 5 a.m.5 Annoyed not to find Berthier at headquarters, Napoleon immediately set to work reading through the army’s recent correspondence. As he had told Ambassador Otto in March, he had indeed come to the theatre of war ‘like a lightning bolt’, but there was much to do and he was not a moment too soon if he was to retrieve the situation.6

16 april: across the isar Meanwhile, the Austrians were slowly advancing. Charles’s plan for 16 April called for the Main Army to force the Isar at three points along its existing lines of march. The principal crossing would be at Landshut, where Radetzky

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would lead the way, followed by the remainder of V Corps, then III Corps, and finally the two reserve corps. On the army’s right, Rosenberg would cross at Dingolfing, defeat Wrede if necessary, and then turn left to outflank Deroy’s position at Landshut. Vécsey would seek contact with Bellegarde along the Danube. On the left, Hiller was to protect the army’s western flank by continuing his move on Moosburg, bringing up the main body of his corps to reinforce the small detachment that had seized this bridge on the 15th.

Information on the enemy, however, was scanty. Charles, assuming that Davout was entirely north of the Danube occupied with Bellegarde, was most concerned with the Allied forces south of the river. He believed that these, with the exception of the Bavarians, were concentrated on the Lech, posing a potential threat to his left. To his immediate front, he knew that Deroy stood at Landshut with one Bavarian division, but intelligence on the whereabouts of the other two was contradictory, leading the Austrian staff to conclude that the entire Bavarian army might be arrayed behind the Isar with Wrede north of Dingolfing and the crown prince somewhere near Freising or Moosburg. The Hauptarmee would have to be prepared for serious resistance at any of these sites.

Landshut, the principal crossing site, had received its first visit from Habsburg troops—a patrol of uhlans—on 13 April, but the Austrians did not establish a presence in the city until the 15th, when Radetzky sent General Staff Hauptmann Joseph von Simbschen there with a platoon of Erzherzog Karl Uhlans. Simbschen endeavoured to persuade the Bavarians to permit an unopposed Austrian crossing, but his entreaties were politely rebuffed.7 There was, however, no fighting. Instead, a curious atmosphere of tense peace prevailed while anxiety mounted among the local citizenry.

Radetzky reinforced Simbschen with two companies of Gradiska Grenzer in the evening and sent another two Grenzer companies and a squadron of Karl Uhlans to outpost the river on both sides of Landshut. In addition, the pioneer divisions from III and V Corps arrived during the night. Otherwise all was quiet.

Radetzky and the remainder of the V Corps advance guard (the other eight companies of Gradiskaner, two squadrons of Kienmayer Hussars, one platoon of Karl Uhlans and a cavalry battery) joined the forward elements of his command at Landshut as day was breaking, bright and clear.8 It was 16 April, the first day of good weather since the campaign had opened and doubtless a most welcome change for the men on both sides. Radetzky straight away set his pioneers to work repairing the two bridges and sent an officer across the river to persuade the Bavarians not to interfere. GL Deroy,

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however, informed the Austrian emissary that he would order his men to fire on the Habsburg pioneers if they did not cease work at once. Radetzky quickly called off his men and the next several hours passed peacefully, while the Austrians assembled in the city and the Bavarians waited tensely on the northern bank.

The terrain at Landshut favoured an attacker coming from the south.

Although the river, swollen and swift from the recent rain, was a major obstacle, the southern (right) bank was substantially higher than the northern, allowing Austrian artillery to dominate the broad meadows on the far side, while the hills and buildings on the Austrian side afforded Habsburg commanders a superb view of almost anything Deroy might care to undertake. The city offered two bridges. One of these, the ‘Spitalbrücke’, connected the city’s central square to an island in the middle of the Isar and thence with the northern bank. The suburbs here offered good protection to the Bavarian defenders. The other bridge, known as the ‘Lendbrücke’, led to open ground that could be swept by Austrian guns and gave Radetzky a chance to outflank the defence of the Spitalbrücke. The low water meadows north of the river, absolutely flat and nearly devoid of cover, extended for three kilometres to a fringe of hills. This high ground made a fine defensive position, but was so far from the bridges that Bavarian guns posted on the heights would be unable to place effective fire on Austrian troops at the crossing sites. The wide meadows were sodden and soft, unsuitable for the manoeuvre of formed troops. They could only be traversed via the two main roads and a few paths, a circumstance that could hinder the withdrawal of the Bavarians on the river’s margin, but would also hamper pursuit.

The terrain complicated Deroy’s already difficult task of defending the river against a greatly superior force with both flanks open and no support in sight. The old general saw clearly that he could neither commit his entire division (7,600 infantry, 1,070 cavalry, eighteen guns) to a fight at the riverbank nor leave the Austrians to cross unmolested. He thus placed about half of his force along the river to contest the repair and passage of the bridges, while retaining the other half and most of his artillery on the heights to the north to cover the inevitable retreat. The five battalions of 1st Brigade stood at the river with a foot battery and three cavalry squadrons: 5th Light Battalion in the houses on the northern end of the Spitalbrücke, II/9th Infantry and two guns near the paper mill at the exit from the Lendbrücke, two other guns slightly closer to the bridge near a large farmstead, I/9 north of Seligenthal, I/10th Infantry in the Am Rennweg suburb, and II/10 with the three squadrons north of the St Nikolaus suburb to serve as the rear

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guard when the brigade withdrew.9 Of his remaining resources, Deroy placed I/5th Infantry in Altdorf to hold that critical defile, while sending a squadron of Bubenhofen Chevaulegers and two companies of the 7th Light to Bruckberg to guard his right; he also sent a detachment of Schützen from II/5 to Gündlkofen to maintain contact with the men at Bruckberg. The rest he positioned on the hills north-east of Altdorf: three line battalions, the other two companies of the 7th Light, four squadrons, and two batteries.10 Thus situated, Deroy awaited the Austrian advance.

Rather than attack, the Austrians made two more abortive attempts to negotiate a free passage of the river. With further palaver clearly futile, Charles, who had now arrived in Landshut and established his headquarters in the Trausnitz castle, ordered Radetzky to ‘drive the Bavarian posts from the far bank and immediately restore the bridges’.11 At 11 a.m., the Austrians opened fire, the cavalry battery of Radetzky’s command reinforced by two V Corps batteries positioned opposite the Lendbrücke.12 The Bavarians replied with alacrity and a lively exchange was soon in progress.

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John H. Gill © 2006, all rights reserved

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34. Württemberg Jäger zu Fuss: the crack Light Brigade wore a handsome dark green uniform jacket with black facings for Jäger (König Jäger shown here) and light blue for the light battalions.

(Alfred Umhey)

35. Bavarian Infantry: Bavarian infantry uniform was a unique ‘cornflower blue’ colour with the ‘Raupenhelm’ also worn

by Baden troops. Note the kettle that was key to preparing rations; the dents indicate that this essential item of equipment has seen tough service.

36. Bavarian Cavalry: Dragoons (as shown here) wore white, chevaulegers green; both had the ‘Raupenhelm’. One regiment of each participated in the charges at Eggmühl.

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43. Battle of Eggmühl (22 April): St Hilaire’s men (left) have captured Unterlaichling in the centre, assisted by Deroy’s Bavarians (the old general is the central figure). Allied infantry presses into the little copse beyond the village and Allied cavalry charges the smoke-

wreathed Austrian battery (right background). ‘How to describe such a scene that impressed all who beheld it!’ exclaimed Chef de Bataillon Bial of I/72nd Ligne. (Anne S.K. Browne Collection)