Austerlitz: Napoleon and the Eagles of Europe (9 page)

Chapter 5

To the Danube and the Rhine

‘Soldiers, we will have forced marches to make,
fatigues and deprivations of all kinds to endure
…we will not rest until we have planted our
eagles in the territories of our enemies!’
*

As their Russian allies gradually began to close the great distance between the two armies destined to serve together in Germany, the Austrian army made its final arrangements for the campaign. On 29 August, at Hetzendorf, on the outskirts of Vienna, the senior Austrian commanders met to thrash out the plan of campaign. It was the first in a series of meetings, but by the time they reached a conclusion on 5 September, Napoleon’s army was already nine days into its march for the Rhine.

At the first of these meetings Archduke Charles presented his ‘General Principles’ of the campaign. He would lead the main army in Italy, for he was convinced that the greatest threat to Austria lay along her Italian border with France. In March 1804 he wrote of this threat to the empire, posed by French forces so close to Austrian lands. He stressed: ‘It seems quite indisputable that the bulk of our forces should be allotted to the Italian theatre of operations’ and added, ‘Hence it is on the Adige that we must expect the first and principal operations, and it is there that the Austrian Armies should assume the offensive.’
¹
Therefore, Charles insisted the army on the Danube hold a position on the Inn river, until the Russians arrived.

However, this was in direct opposition to Mack’s view, which demanded an Austrian advance into Bavaria in early September, in order to gain time to absorb the Bavarian army. Mack, who had completely won over the kaiser by this time, also recommended that Francis should assume his role as commander-in-chief with himself as quartermaster general (chief of staff).
This would give Mack authority to communicate directly with the chiefs of staff allocated to the armies in Italy, Tirol and on the Danube.

Archduke Ferdinand, named as commander of the army on the Danube, expressed concern that according to his calculations, the French could have 150,000 men at Munich before the Russians reached the Inn. He therefore proposed that only an army of observation of 30,000 to 40,000 men should advance into Bavaria, falling back if pressed by the French. This far-sighted appraisal of the young archduke’s gained the support of the kaiser, as well as Charles and his chief of staff, Zach. But Mack was having none of it and launched into a convincing destruction of Ferdinand’s calculations, suggesting that Napoleon could only bring a maximum of 70,000 to the Rhine, with great numbers tied up on the coast, in Paris, or confined to hospitals by various epidemics. Indeed, the very suggestion that 150,000 men could march from the Channel to Munich in the time span suggested by Ferdinand seemed highly unlikely to a man of Mack’s experience. Eloquent, persuasive, and backed by Cobenzl, Mack, won the kaiser over: consequently, the army would move into Bavaria.

But Anton Mayer, chief of staff to Ferdinand’s Danube army, argued that while Charles’ plan to attack through Italy was the correct one, when Napoleon did eventually move, the Danube was his most likely target. Mayer had already become frustrated in his dealings with Mack, who had failed to provide him with a plan for the campaign in Bavaria. Mayer turned to Charles for help. Later, however, on 5 September, Mayer gained support for the redirection of some 30,000 troops, earmarked for Italy, to march for the Upper Danube instead. Despite his objections, Charles, with his influence much undermined, was forced to concede. No doubt much to Mack’s delight, the kaiser approved this transfer of manpower. The army on the Danube now increased to 72,000 men, on a par with Mack’s estimate of the strength Napoleon could bring to this theatre.

Until the arrival of the Russians there was no need for the kaiser to join the army, so he remained in Vienna, as did both Charles and Ferdinand, prior to taking over their commands personally. Mack, however, as the kaiser’s representative, had already issued orders on 2 September for the army to assemble at Wels, in preparation for the march on the Inn, two days later. Mack’s presence with the army made Mayer’s position difficult, even before it became known that Mack carried secret orders authorising him to override Ferdinand’s decisions. As it was, Ferdinand did not join the army until 19 September, allowing Mack plenty of time to stamp his authority over Mayer.

Karl Mack, Freiherr von Leiberich’s path to power had been unusual. Unlike the majority of senior military men in the Austrian army, who owed their rank to the fortune of high birth, Mack enrolled in the army in 1770 as an eighteen-year-old cavalry trooper. Although the son of a minor Protestant official, Mack
gained his introduction to the Catholic-dominated army through an uncle on his mother’s side of the family, who served as a
hauptmann
in the 2. Karabinierregiment. Mack found army life agreeable and eighteen months later earned his first promotion, to the rank of
korporal
. Further promotions followed until in 1777, after excelling in the role of regimental adjutant – a position held by a senior NCO in the Austrian army – he gained his reward, a commission in the regiment, as
unterleutnant
. Mack’s big break came the following year when chosen to act as secretary to Feldmarschall Lacy, the honorary colonel of the regiment, on an inspection tour of the Bohemian border. He continued to serve Lacy through the War of the Bavarian Succession (1778–79) and impressed everyone with his energy and devotion to duty. This taste of command outside the regimental structure appealed to Mack, so in 1783, with the rank of
rittmeister
(cavalry captain), he transferred to the Quartermaster General staff. He continued to earn high praise, gaining further promotion and in 1788 came an appointment as ADC to Kaiser Joseph II.

Mack’s star continued in its ascendancy in the following years. In 1789, while serving against the Turks, he gained promotion to
oberstleutnant
but crossed swords with the aged Feldmarschall Laudon, one of the great eighteenth century Austrian generals, while serving under him at the Siege of Belgrade. Mack earned himself a severe reprimand: but after his successful attack on the Turkish-held city, he was promoted to
oberst
, and was awarded the Order of Maria Theresa and the title
freiherr
(baron).

After his exertions Mack became ill and took a period of leave from the army, but in December 1790 he returned, as commander of 3. Chevaulegers. However, he spent much of that winter in Vienna lecturing on military matters to the nineteen-year-old Archduke Charles, marking the start of a friendship that was to end bitterly eight years later.

In 1793, with Austria now at war with Revolutionary France, Feldmarschall Prince Coburg-Saalfield requested Mack’s services as his chief of staff in the Austrian Netherlands. Through Mack’s encouragement of an offensive strategy the Austrian army won a victory at Aldenhoven and again at Neerwinden, where even though struck down by ill health, he persuaded Coburg to abandon plans for a retreat and to fight on.

Wounded later in the year, Mack went on leave to recuperate, returning to Coburg’s staff in 1794. He continued to advocate an offensive strategy, but the campaign went badly and with his ill health returning and intrigues building against him in Vienna, he retired from the army. He returned again in 1796 with the rank of
feldmarschalleutnant
, and although the British were keen for him to command in Portugal, he accepted instead the post of chief of staff to the Army of the Interior. Here, in 1798, he clashed for the first time with Archduke Charles over proposed war plans, leading to animosity that brought their friendship to an end. Later that year, with Kaiser Francis’ approval, Mack was
offered the command of the Neapolitan army, which he accepted. What started as a promising campaign against the French in Rome descended into chaos as his poorly trained army collapsed and was thrown into disarray. Disgusted by the performance of the army and threatened by an angry populace, Mack surrendered himself to the French in January 1799. Taken to France as a prisoner, Mack eventually broke his parole and returned to Austria in 1800 to settle into retirement, preparing documents expounding his views on offensive warfare and the state of the army. He had served the army for thirty years and had risen from a lowly cavalry trooper to the command of a foreign army. It was a remarkable career and one that now appeared to be over: until intrigues in the Viennese court thrust him into the spotlight once more. Championed by the joint foreign ministers, Cobenzl and Colloredo, Mack became the weapon in their war to undermine the position of the Archduke Charles.

Mack was intelligent, energetic, dogged and brave, while also possessing great skills as a persuasive speaker. He was well respected by those who served with him in 1793–94, particularly the British, but he was also pedantic and became bogged down in creating complex and over ambitious strategies that were often beyond the skills of those serving under him to carry out. His enigmatic character has been described as fluctuating between ‘extreme rashness and curious irresolution’.
²

Having gained support for the advance of the army into Bavaria, Mack, unwilling to delegate, wasted no time in setting the wheels in motion. In-between the meetings at Hetzendorf he journeyed the 100 miles to Wels, the main camp of the assembling army. On 2 September he issued orders for the move to the Bavarian border to commence two days later. On 3 September the Austrian government broke off diplomatic relations with France and despatched Prince Schwarzenberg to Munich to inform the Bavarian elector, Maximilian-Joseph, of the Third Coalition’s decision to open war against France, and to seek his adherence to their cause. Austria, of course, knew nothing of a treaty Bavaria signed with France in August and confidently expected that the Bavarian army would soon join her own forces.

Maximilian found himself in a difficult position. He felt well disposed towards France, for Bavaria gained new territory in 1803 in compensation for that lost in the Treaty of Luneville in 1800. In this his powerful chief minister, Maximilian Montgelas, supported him. However, the elector was married to another of the ubiquitous, vehemently anti-French daughters of the margrave of Baden. She demanded that her husband side with Austria. Maximilian, under mounting pressure from both sides, swayed one way and then another before finally agreeing to sign secretly with France. When Schwarzenberg arrived at the Bavarian court he found a very powerful ally in Caroline, the elector’s wife. Together they began to work on her husband and gradually swung him back towards Austria.

But public opinion turned against Austria as her army advanced to the Inn and began to cross into Bavaria without awaiting the elector’s approval. Austrian plans to break up the Bavarian army, allocating one regiment to serve with each Austrian division, caused widespread anger amongst the army officers too. With this groundswell of opinion, Maximilian finally decided to side with France. On the night of 8–9 September he and his court left Munich for Regensburg, from whence they travelled on to the city of Würzburg, which they reached on 12 September. So as not to alert the Austrians, orders for the mobilisation of the army were not issued until 7 September. Initially the army formed in two groups with orders to avoid contact with the Austrians, one centred between Munich and Regensburg, the other on Ulm. Schwarzenberg discovered the deception on the morning of 9 September and immediately left Munich to find Mack and acquaint him with these unexpected developments.

The leading Austrian units crossed the Inn river into Bavaria on 8 September in two columns: this first wave comprised thirty battalions of infantry and thirty-one squadrons of cavalry. One column passed the river at Schärding, marching westwards to the Isar river at Landshut. The hope that this column would intercept any Bavarian units in the area was not realised: most of those assembling between Munich and Regensberg withdrew northwards across the Danube. The second column crossed further south, at Braunau, heading for Parsdorf on the outskirts of Munich, some 70 miles away. Both columns were scheduled to reach their destinations by 13 September, but in fact the first units of the second column were at Munich two days ahead of schedule and entered the city on 12 September. The rest of the army followed according to a strict timetable drawn up by Mack until the whole army formed on the Lech river. At the same time FML Jella
i
, operating in the Tirol but now released from Archduke John’s army to join Archduke Ferdinand, established his main body near Feldkirch on the Rhine, above Lake Constance, and sent an advance guard beyond the northern shores of the lake.