Austerlitz: Napoleon and the Eagles of Europe (26 page)

In fact Murat, believing he faced the whole of Kutuzov’s army, was reluctant to attack until reinforced by IV and V Corps. However, encouraged by the success of his ruse at the Tabor bridge, he sent forward a messenger with a request to speak with the commander of the rearguard. Nostitz approached and was informed of the conclusion of an armistice between Austria and France. Count Nostitz, schooled in the old gentlemanly ways of war, accepted Murat’s word, turned his advance guard about and rode off to inform Bagration.

Unlike his Austrian comrade, Bagration was unimpressed with tales of an armistice and stood his ground. Alerted to this development, Kutuzov, more attuned to the changing nature of war than some of his Austrian colleagues, immediately saw an opportunity to gain time for the escape of his beleaguered force. By agreeing to a truce while discussions took place, Kutuzov reasoned that he could withdraw his army unnoticed, shielded from French eyes by Bagration’s force. In accordance with this plan, Kutuzov sent two aides-de-camp to Murat to open negotiations for the safe passage of the army back to Russia. This suited Murat perfectly, as he saw it as an opportunity to complete the concentration of his command before commencing the attack. Later that evening, Kutuzov’s ADC, Baron Wintzingerode, and Murat’s chief of staff, Général de division Belliard, signed the agreement, subject to the approval of Napoleon and Kutuzov. In the meantime, both sides were to maintain their current positions, with either side required to give four hours notice of a resumption of hostilities.

This agreement may have suited Murat, but Maréchal Lannes remained less than impressed. In a brief discourse with Bagration, he responded to the Russian general’s flattery with the retort that, if he had his way they would be fighting at that moment, not exchanging empty compliments. By the time Murat’s aide galloped off to Napoleon at the Schönbrunn Palace, to advise him of his second great masterstroke, Kutuzov was gaining ground. Only Bagration, with his 7,000 cold, hungry and exhausted men remained to face a gathering army of 37,000 Frenchmen.

Napoleon received Murat’s despatch in the early hours of 16 November. He could not believe what he read and for the second time in a few days dashed off a crushing reprimand to his errant brother-in-law:

‘It is impossible for me to find words to express my displeasure … you have no right to conclude an armistice without my orders … Break the armistice immediately and march upon the enemy … it is only a ruse. March! Destroy the Russian army. The Austrians let themselves be duped over the passage of the Vienna bridge – you have let yourself be duped by an aide-de-camp of the tsar.’

It was already after midday when Murat received the emperor’s rebuke, and in response, immediately prepared to lash out at the Russians, but Lannes insisted on honouring the agreed four-hour notice. Alerted by an increase in French activity, Wintzingerode and Nostitz rode forward to discover its purpose. Angered by the Russians’ adept use of his own strategy, Murat held the two officers at his headquarters in Hollabrunn, refusing to allow them return to their own lines for the coming battle. The darkness of an autumnal evening began to descend on the scene by the time the French advanced at 5.00pm. Napoleon set out for Hollabrunn, hoping a great battle was in the offing, but of Bernadotte, hopelessly delayed at the Danube, there was no sign.

Bagration pulled his men back from the village of Schöngrabern, drawing them up in front of the next village, Grund. Having made an effort to strengthen the ramshackle collection of buildings, he placed his artillery in the centre of his line, across the road leading from Schöngrabern. On either side of the guns he placed six weak battalions of infantry, with another two held in reserve. On each flank he posted a Russian cavalry regiment supported by a regiment of Cossacks, holding the Austrian 4. Hessen-Homburg-Husaren in reserve. Murat commanded two divisions of Lannes’ V Corps (those of Oudinot and Suchet), two divisions of Soult’s IV Corps (Legrand and Vandamme) and most of the cavalry. He placed Oudinot’s Grenadier Reserve in the centre, behind Schöngrabern; on their left flank he formed Legrand’s division and on the right flank Suchet. Vandamme’s division remained in reserve. The cavalry supported the attacks but the ground, much broken with vineyards and boggy areas, restricted their employment.

As soon as the French began to advance, the Russian artillery bombarded Schöngrabern, which quickly caught fire and delayed the movement of Oudinot’s division and the artillery. On the French left, Legrand pushed forward against the Russian right, commanded by General Maior Ulanius, but found progress difficult through the vineyards. In fact, the French cavalry were first to test this flank. Ulanius’ men held their nerve and by steady musketry repulsed two mounted attacks as the burning village of Schöngrabern cast an eerie glow across the battlefield.

Legrand’s division now closed to combat but Ulanius’ men still held firm. After some delay Oudinot’s division bypassed Schöngrabern and marched against the centre and left of the Russian line, while Suchet moved forward on their right. Here the six battalions commanded by General Maior Selekhov faced fearful odds, but they too stood their ground against overwhelming numbers. Bagration fed in some of his reserve as the two sides hacked and stabbed at each other ferociously. Twice the Russians were surrounded but fought their way out with the bayonet. Bagration now gave the order for a withdrawal, resulting in some extremely desperate fighting within the houses and along the narrow streets and alleys of Grund. However, Bagration kept his men together and battled his way back to the village of Guntersdorf, where he had ordered two battalions and some Cossacks to form a new rearguard to protect his retreat. All the time the French pressed forward. Whenever a chance presented itself the cavalry darted forward and slashed their way into the Russian ranks. But they did not have it all their own way as Jean-Pierre Sibelet, a lieutenant in the 11ème Chasseurs à cheval, later recalled:

‘Having passed on the other side of the road to pursue the enemy who were in no position to resist, we found while advancing, some Russian soldiers in groups of ten to twelve, rummaging around and groping forward. On our approach, they threw themselves on the ground with their muskets beside them and, as we passed, they appeared to us to be dead, but hardly had we passed, when they stood up and fired on us from behind. Educated of this manoeuvre we turned our bridles: the soldiers who had fired slept again, but now they all bore the mark of the point of the sabre in the back.’
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By now total confusion reigned on the battlefield, yet still the outnumbered Russians did not break. The village of Grund burned too and the cries of the wounded, unable to escape the flames, fused with the smell of roasting human flesh, all adding to the vision of hell in which the desperate men now found themselves. Lieutenant Sibelet, fighting on a battlefield illuminated only by burning buildings, described his bewildering and unnerving experience:

‘Our infantry, taking us for enemy troops fired on us; but as it was extremely high, the balls passed over our heads. One moment later we took two Russian artillery pieces that we were obliged to release. The Russians took four of ours which we took back from them … the soldiers fired one on another. French battalions and squadrons were in the middle of the Russians, and the Russians in the middle of the French; our guns shot at us and Russian guns shot at the Russians. It really was complete confusion.’
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The fighting around Guntersdorf continued in this way until midnight, when Napoleon, who had now arrived at Hollabrunn, advised Murat to bring the fighting to an end. After seven hours’ stubborn resistance Bagration disappeared into the night with his shattered command. Only in the morning was the true cost revealed. Across the rolling, snow-covered ground between Schöngrabern and Guntersdorf lay the frozen corpses of maybe 1,200 Russian soldiers, and when these were added to the losses in wounded, prisoners and missing, Bagration’s rearguard defence perhaps cost around 3,000 men: almost half of his command. Yet the sacrifice allowed Kutuzov to escape and gain two marches on the French.

Bagration forced his army on throughout the night, and by the morning of 17 November he reached Neu Schallersdorf, just outside Znaim. Detaching some cavalry to act as a rearguard, he set out on the road towards Pohrlitz, 25 miles away, a town which Kutuzov reached safely later that day. Here the Russian commander received the welcome support of Prince Liechtenstein, at the head of his Austrian troops. Amongst these was the sixth battalion of IR49 Kerpen. Major Mahler, an officer called out of retirement to command the battalion, only joined his newly recruited men at Korneuburg, north of Vienna. At Pohrlitz, Mahler revealed that, ‘During this strenuous march, I lost many men, some of whom had been left behind because of fatigue; others, out of fear, as most were still recent recruits, had headed off home.’ The following day, amid scenes of great emotion, Bagration’s heroic but savagely depleted force reunited with Kutuzov’s in the town. But with no time to waste, the whole force moved off to Brünn, reaching it later that day.

Here Kutuzov received most welcome news: Buxhöwden and his army were now just over a day’s march away. He had won the race.

As soon as the diverse elements of the two armies drew together so their relationship began to suffer. Major Mahler viewed the Russians with despair: ‘Although they received their provisions separately and despite all our efforts to oppose them, the Russians seized the bread and forage rations from the men of our force, and even carried off officers’ baggage and wagons into their camp.’

After his diplomatic mission to Potsdam and pleasant interlude with his sister, the tsar also now reached the army. He joined the kaiser at Olmütz, an
ancient fortified town some 45 miles north-east of Brünn, which now assumed the role of Allied army headquarters.

Despite the abundant supplies present in Brünn’s magazines and depots, Kutuzov marched again on the morning of 19 November and later that day encountered the leading column of Buxhöwden’s army. Both armies then retired to Olschan, about 5 miles south-west of Olmütz, where they set up camp on 22 November in an excellent defensive position. It was the end of a monumental march of over 900 miles, carried out in bad weather, on poor roads, with inadequate clothing and failing supplies, and for the last 250 miles, under the constant threat of French attack. At Olschan, free at last from pursuit, they could rest and begin to recover from their ordeal. But with so many men crowded together and with supplies short, disease quickly struck. Major Mahler recorded that: ‘a large number of men had to be conveyed daily to the Olmütz hospital; during our time in the camp at Olmütz I was myself forced to transport away five or six soldiers as they had died suddenly, as well as sending 200 men to the hospital.’

On the morning after the battle at Schöngrabern, Napoleon assumed front line direction of the army for the first time since it advanced across the Isar river on 26 October. On the morning of 17 November he directed it towards Znaim, but other than encountering a little Allied rearguard opposition, the march was unopposed and of the main body there was no sign. By the time his leading troops entered Znaim it was clear to Napoleon that Kutuzov had escaped, and as his army was suffering in much the same way as the Russians, he called a halt, allowing a day’s rest at the well-stocked town.

On 19 November Murat continued on the road to Brünn, the principal town in Moravia, where Napoleon decided to set up his headquarters, marking an end to the second phase of the campaign. The emperor entered the city the following day and extended his army in and around it. Again the Allies had abandoned vast quantities of supplies and equipment, which the French eagerly took advantage of. The two armies now stood some 45 miles apart and began to plan their next moves.

An eyewitness observing Napoleon’s arrival in Brünn described him riding into the city accompanied by 1,000 Guard cavalry and forty Mameluks:

‘His outer appearance seized the general attention. He wore a grey coat; a low hat covered his head. Napoleon was small and corpulent, wore a dark green uniform with red facings, golden epaulets and two stars on his breasts. His face was pale, his look bright and wistful. He set up his quarters in the Governors Palace. Often one could see him by the window where he – after he walked through the room – remained standing and observing the square.’
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That evening, each household was obliged to illuminate the city by setting two candles in their windows, to welcome the arrival of Napoleon. The French army then seized all the meat in the city and rounded up all the cattle from the surrounding villages and farms, many of which they slaughtered in the Kohlmarkt, one of the city’s principal squares, ‘where the blood flowed in streams’. By the time the army left the area a few days later, the local population had been relieved of 3,000 horses, 4,000 cattle and 6,000 sheep.

While Napoleon pondered his maps and charts and the tsar and kaiser held strategic conferences, the ordinary soldiers of each army focused their attention on the basic necessities of life: keeping warm and finding food. Such was their condition that they cared little how they acquired it. In the French bivouacs on the outskirts of the city, anything combustible was forcibly removed from the simple peasant houses and when that supply became exhausted the houses themselves were torn down to stoke the fires through the freezing nights. One officer recorded that after the men moved on to a new bivouac the peasants tentatively approached and ‘picked their way among the wreckage [of the camp] in search of whatever might belong to them’.
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Many stragglers trailed miles behind their units and roamed freely through the countryside forcibly taking whatever they could. To combat this Napoleon found it necessary to form columns to round up these men and drive them back to their regiments. However, in excessive cases of pillage, the emperor authorised execution.