Austerlitz: Napoleon and the Eagles of Europe (21 page)

Alexander sent his aide, Prince Peter Dolgorukov – a staunch opponent of Czartoryski’s Polish plan – to Berlin, to make one final attempt at convincing Frederick William to side with the Allies, or at least open his frontier to the passage of Russian troops. Dolgorukov’s efforts failed to sway the Prussian monarch and he had set out on his journey back to Alexander at Pulawy, when a messenger from the king overtook him and recalled him to Berlin. Suddenly everything changed. The news – just received – that French forces had boldly marched through the Prussian territory of Ansbach without any diplomatic communication incensed Frederick William. On the very day that Czartoryski informed the Russian ambassador to Vienna, ‘His Majesty is firmly decided to start war against Prussia’,
⁷
Dolgorukov sped off with the momentous news that Prussia now granted Russian troops permission to march through her lands to pursue the war against Napoleon.

By the time Dolgorukov reached the tsar, he had already moved to military headquarters, but delighted by the news, he immediately shelved his aggressive plans against Prussia. Frederick William requested a secret meeting with the tsar, but Alexander, determined to show all Europe that Prussia had fallen in with the Allies, insisted on travelling the 400 miles to Potsdam. He set off on 21 October, arriving four days later. Only then did discussions for Prussian involvement in the plans of the Third Coalition take place. But by then Ulm had fallen and Kutuzov looked on in vain for reinforcements that were many, many miles away. He was alone, isolated, and clearly Napoleon’s next target.

On 26 October, the day he received Schulmeister’s extensive report of the Allied position at Braunau, Napoleon set La Grande Armée in motion once more. He planned a three-pronged attack on the Inn river, with supporting flanking movements. The left of the main attack saw Lannes’ V Corps advancing from Landshut, via Eggenfeld, on Braunau; while in the centre, with Murat acting as an advance guard, Soult, Davout and the Garde Impériale marched on Mühldorf. Bernadotte, the Bavarians and Marmont, forming a broad front on the right, moved towards Salzburg. Elsewhere, Ney’s VI Corps, which had experienced so much of the fighting around Ulm, was broken up. While Ney headed south towards Tirol with a division and a half of infantry, the other half division and Ney’s cavalry remained behind to guard the Ulm prisoner haul. At the same time, Dupont’s division joined that of Dumonceau, detached from Marmont’s II Corps, marching along the Danube towards Passau, protecting the left of La Grande Armée. Further to the rear, Augereau with VII Corps, having reached the Rhine after his long march from Brest, received orders to occupy Kempten and observe Vorarlberg in conjunction with Ney’s wider operations in Tirol. By these moves Napoleon hoped to prevent any threat to the flank or rear of the army by Archduke John.

Presuming that Kutuzov would defend the lower reaches of the Inn, Napoleon intended that the right, led by Bernadotte, would cut across the headwaters of the Salzach river, a tributary of the Inn, and turn the Allied left flank. Advancing towards the Inn, Bernadotte, with I Corps and the Bavarians, repaired the bridges at Wasserburg and Rosenheim, crossed the river on 28 October and entered Salzburg two days later. Marmont headed for the bridge at Tittmoning, between Salzburg and Burghausen. On the evening of 26 October, Davout began to repair the bridge at Mühldorf while Murat waited at Ampfing. The following day Murat sent a brigade over the restored bridge, scattered the few remaining defenders and enabled repairs to be carried out on the bridges at Neuötting and Marktl. Davout’s light cavalry then crossed the Inn on 28 October and prepared the way for Davout, Murat and Soult to lead their commands across the Salzach river at Burghausen, about 13 miles upstream of Braunau. On the left, Lannes’ corps experienced least difficulties. He reached the Inn opposite Braunau unopposed on the same day that the centre column reached Burghausen, but found the Russians had broken the bridge over the river. With the walls of the town appearing undefended, he sent two detachments of infantry across in boats, whereupon the citizens of Braunau opened the gates to him. Inside, he discovered large quantities of military equipment, food and clothing: but no Russians.

Unable and unwilling to defend the position, and aware that the French were approaching the upper reaches of the Inn, Kutuzov ordered the withdrawal of his army on 26 October.

Having taken his leave from Munich, Napoleon arrived in Braunau with the Garde Impériale on the evening of 29 October, by which time Davout, Soult and Murat were reforming some 10 miles beyond Braunau, centred on Altheim, with Lannes moving north to Schärding.

The route back down the Danube valley offered Kutuzov a number of defensive positions. South of the river the valley extended for about 65 miles on the Braunau line before reaching the mountainous northern spurs of Tirol, but it gradually narrowed and at Enns was reduced to a width of around 35 miles. A number of rivers flowed across the valley from the mountains to the Danube: the Traun, Enns, Ypps and Traisen. Each could be defended and utilised to delay the French pursuit. Kutuzov’s initial plan was to fall back 40 miles to Lambach on the Traun. Nostitz’s Austrian detachment at Passau received orders to fall back on Linz, while Kienmayer’s command at Salzburg was to draw back also, keeping aligned with Kutuzov. Then, protected by a rearguard commanded by General Maior Prince Peter Bagration and supported by a reserve, under General Leitenant Mikhail Miloradovich, Kutuzov set out for Lambach, which he reached on 29 October, assembling his headquarters at Wels. Here Kaiser Francis and a group of high-ranking Austrian officers joined him.

The rapid turn of events had taken their toll on Francis: one officer thought ‘he was pale, emaciated, and his eyes were vacant.’
⁸
Kutuzov now proposed Vienna be abandoned to the French. Once freed of this responsibility, he proposed a stout defence of the line of the Enns until such time that he retreated over the Danube at Krems. Here he could reform the Allied army in safety, await reinforcements and prepare for a new campaign. Concerned by this desire to abandon Vienna, Francis offered a compromise, announcing that he was prepared to forsake his city to the French if necessary. However, if Kutuzov held the line of the Enns for as long as possible, before falling back to fortified positions under construction at Mautern, protecting the Krems bridge, the kaiser hoped Kutuzov could remain south of the Danube. From here, Francis felt he could engage Napoleon until reinforced by the arrival of Buxhöwden’s Russian army as well as those of the Archdukes Charles and John. With the meeting over and the matter left in Kutuzov’s hands, a despondent Francis prepared to return to Vienna to contemplate the fate of the imperial capital, his ears ringing from the bitter complaints of the local population against Russian excesses.

Those civilians living in the Danube valley were suffering greatly from the passage of these great armies through their locality. The town of Ried, some 25 miles east of Braunau, nervously awaited the return of the Russians. On 25 October one of the inhabitants wrote:

‘The enemy is arriving in our neighbourhood. It is thought that the Russians will stop them, but I no longer rely upon them; I am
packing up my goods; I wish to God I had done so before these savage men arrived…They have plundered everything…They have, however, been driven from Braunau, and they are now coming, to the number of 30,000 … They can do no more harm to this unhappy country, except to burn the houses, for no inhabitants remain.’
⁹

It was at Mehrnbach (a village just outside Ried) that the first of the rearguard actions took place. Although the responsibility for leading the advance fell to Murat and his cavalry, he was not the first agent of France into Austrian lands. That honour lay with Charles Schulmeister.

Having handed over his report of the situation to Savary at Allied headquarters in Munich on 26 October, Schulmeister set out again the following morning. In the guise of a German jeweller, with his colleague, Jean Rippmann de Kork, who had been with him in Ulm, he took the road to Vienna on the second part of his mission. He travelled first to Linz, avoiding the main concentration of the French army near Braunau. Here he met a man by the name of Joseph von Rueff, head of the tobacco bureau at Braunau – a customs officer – who Schulmeister may have known previously from his former smuggling escapades. Schulmeister, mistaking von Rueff’s loyalties, offered him a sum of money to join them on their mission, which he saw fit to accept.

The three men travelled to Amstetten, where they spent the night. On the morning of 29 October Schulmeister handed a report to Rippmann instructing him to remain until the French arrived and then to hand the report to Murat. While these arrangements were being finalised, von Rueff slipped away and reported his colleagues as spies to the Russian commander in the town. This officer instructed von Rueff to continue his journey with Schulmeister, keeping him under close observation, and had Rippmann arrested as soon as the two men left town. The following day, in Kemmelbach, a village close to Melk, word reached Schulmeister of Rippmann’s arrest, but before he could depart von Rueff alerted the authorities, who seized him and placed him under arrest. Despite presenting his pass and claiming he worked for FML Merveldt, Schulmeister found himself behind bars, where Rippmann joined him on 31 October.

Transported to Vienna the following day, the two spies suffered three days of intense questioning before they were transferred to the secure fortress of Königsgrätz for further interrogation. Notwithstanding the importance of these prisoners, the guard escort consisted only of a senior NCO and three men, who appeared less than pleased with their task. Only a day into their journey the escort grew tired of their charges and after giving them a thorough beating, left them for dead by the side of the road on a freezing night. Incredibly, both men survived and decided to separate. Schulmeister, with his
clothes in tatters and his body wracked with pain, disappeared into the night. Rippmann, however, was made of less sturdy material and although quickly recaptured, died shortly after in hospital. But for Schulmeister the campaign was not yet over.
¹⁰

Murat began his advance on 30 October with a note of caution from Napoleon. The Austrians were old enemies, but he had never crossed swords with the Russians. The emperor advised: ‘The Russians are not yet broken; they know how to attack.’ At Mehrnbach, the French cavalry encountered an Austrian hussar regiment, part of a detachment commanded by Generalmajor Schustekh, attached to Bagration’s rearguard. The 1er Chasseurs à cheval attacked these hussars, who fell back before them for about 10 miles to Haag, where they turned and checked the pursuit. It was only when Murat sent forward Beaumont’s dragoon division in support that the Austrians fell back again. However, by then the hussars were receiving supporting musketry fire from wooded hills close to the road, which allowed the Austrians to pull clear.

The French cavalry resumed their advance in the morning and encountered four Austrian battalions, another part of Schustekh’s detachment, as they approached Lambach. Pinned by 1er Chasseurs à cheval and 7ème Hussards, the three battalions of 9. Peterwardein Grenzer and a battalion of IR60 Gyulai defended themselves while FML Merveldt, alerted to the problem, sent to Bagration for help. At the same time, the French cavalry called for support, which saw GD Bisson’s division of Davout’s corps rushing forward. Bagration was at Lambach with the rest of the Allied rearguard, supervising the destruction of the bridge over the Traun and responded rapidly to the call for help, sending forward a squadron of the Pavlograd Hussars, six infantry battalions (the 6. and 8. Jäger Regiments) and an artillery company. The battle flowed backwards and forwards for about five hours between the two evenly matched sides, until eventually, a French cavalry charge broke Allied resistance and the rearguard, under pressure, fell back across the Traun, completing the destruction of the bridge behind them.
¹¹

On 1 November, while Kutuzov’s army fell back towards the line of the Enns, where he intended making a stand, the French established themselves on the Traun. Napoleon ordered Davout to form his corps at Lambach and sent a small advance guard to scout the road towards Steyr, on the upper reaches of the Enns. Soult marched north to Wels while Murat extended down the Traun towards the Danube to repair the bridges. Lannes was to march on Linz and occupy the city while Marmont marched on Lambach. Bernadotte received orders to leave Salzburg and march with his corps and Generalleutnant Wrede’s Bavarian division for the Traun, while the other Bavarian division, commanded by Generalleutnant Deroy, was to cooperate with Ney in Tirol.

As the Allies fell back on the Enns, Kutuzov authorised a slight restructuring of his command. He retained direct command over Nostitz’ small brigade that had just disrupted the bridge over the Danube at Linz and retired on Enns, but the rest of the Austrian troops now marched towards Steyr under Merveldt’s overall command to hold the southern extreme of the line. Bagration continued to lead the Russian rearguard. He was a fine rearguard commander and carried out his task with determination. Pursued all the way by Murat, the two forces arrived at the bridge at Enns almost simultaneously. A detachment of the Pavlograd Hussars, commanded by Podpolkovnik Joseph O’Rourke, an officer of Irish descent, was the last to cross. Then, under a hail of canister and directed by O’Rourke, these men set alight the incendiary material placed on the bridge and completed its destruction. The two sides continued to exchange fire across the river for the remaining daylight hours of 3 November. During the day, while Bagration delayed the French advance, Kutuzov ordered fieldworks constructed along the river for the defence of the line of the Enns.