Fire and Sword (23 page)
Authors: Simon Scarrow
‘Yes, sire.’
‘Then go!’
Bessières saluted, and spurred his horse forward, pounding along behind the rear of Vandamme’s division as he re-joined his men. Riding to the front of the cavalry column, whose mounts breathed through flared nostrils and stamped and pawed the frozen ground, Bessières stood in his stirrups and raised his sword towards the heavens. He paused a moment and then swept the point down until it aimed directly at the Russian Guard. A bugle call shrilled out, and the squadrons rippled forward in a trot, hooves rumbling over the hard ground. The distance to the enemy was short and the slope lent the cavalry extra momentum as the pace increased into a gallop, and then, fifty yards from the Russians, they charged. Drawn swords glittered above the flickering horsehair crests on their gleaming helmets and then, as Napoleon and the men of Vandamme’s division watched in breathless awe, Bessières’s cavalry plunged into the dense mass of the first battalion of Russian infantry. Swords plunged down, flickered up, spattering gleaming crimson droplets, and the air was filled with the cries of men, the sharp whinnies of wounded horses and the crackle of musket and pistol fire.
Behind the first battalion men were hurriedly forming into two squares as the Russian cavalry formed line to counter-charge. As the helpless men of the first battalion scattered and ran for their lives, Bessières and his horsemen broke through the rush of fugitives and bore down on the nearest square. Meanwhile, the horse guns jingled across the slope in front of Vandamme’s men and began to deploy, their teams loading them with case shot and waiting for a clear target.The Russian infantry, closed up, presented a dense front of gleaming bayonets and no amount of urging could persuade any of the French mounts to throw themselves into the enemy square.Volleys flashed out from each side, unseating the passing cavalry and bringing down several horses, who pitched forward and rolled as their iron-shod hooves lashed out. Bessières quickly realised that his men were being cut down uselessly as they surged about the squares, and ordered the recall. Strident notes carried above the noise and the French cavalry drew off, trotting back up the slope to form on their standards.
There was a brief lull as the last of Bessières’s men hurried clear of the enemy squares, and the French gunners and the Russians stared at each other over ground strewn with dead and wounded men and horses.Then the captain in charge of the battery bellowed the order to fire and the six guns bucked in recoil as they spat lethal cones of lead balls into the closely packed enemy.The case shot ripped bloody holes through the Russian lines, which were quickly filled as the sergeants dressed their ranks. But no men, no matter how brave, could withstand such carnage for long and after several rounds from each of the guns, when hundreds of Russians lay heaped about the squares, those left began to waver, instinctively backing away from the French. This time there was nothing that the officers could do to rally their men and the formations broke as the Russians fled down the slope, straight towards their own cavalry.
As soon as he saw his chance to catch the enemy cavalry in disorder, Bessières ordered his men to charge again. They pounded down the slope once more, narrowly avoiding the last blast of case shot sent after the Russians. Then they were in among the tide of running infantrymen, hacking wildly as they ran the broken enemy down. Ahead, the Russian cavalry was in disarray as their routing comrades forced their way through the horse lines, thrusting bayonets or musket butts at any horseflesh that threatened to bar their escape from the French cavalry. Then Bessières and his men thundered in amongst them, shattering any last vestige of order in the ranks of the Russian cavalry.The impetus of the charge and the chaos caused by the fleeing infantry was more than the Russian horsemen could bear, and quickly they turned their mounts and fled down the slope, riding down their own comrades as they raced for safety.
Napoleon regarded the scene with grim satisfaction. His forces controlled the Heights and the enemy centre had disintegrated. The battle was as good as won. Only the scale of his victory was yet to be determined. He turned to Vandamme.
‘Your men have fought well, General, but there is one last effort I must ask of you.’
‘Yes, sire?’
Napoleon gestured to the southern edge of the Heights, where Davout and the French right were still engaged in a desperately uneven fight against the Austrians. ‘Wheel your division and advance on the enemy flank. If you are in time, then the trap will be closed, and the most glorious victory is ours for the taking.’
Vandamme smiled. ‘Yes, sire. It will be done.’
Napoleon nodded and turned away, galloping back up towards the crest of the Heights. As he reached it and reined in, he saw Bernadotte’s corps advancing to cover the French centre. Beyond them came the men of the Imperial Guard, streaming south across the Heights to close round the Austrians before they became aware of the danger now that their allies had been cut off from them. Soult’s other divisions followed Vandamme south at a quick step, driven on by their officers. Napoleon rode ahead to the southern edge of the Pratzen Heights and gazed down on the densely packed formations of the Austrian army as they waited their turn to be launched against the right flank of the Grand Army.The survivors of Legrand’s division and Davout’s corps were not content with holding back the Austrians, but had already driven them back across the Goldbach and were attempting to retake the villages of Zokolnitz and Tellnitz in the face of withering fire from the massed batteries of the enemy.
As soon as Soult’s corps reached the edge of the Heights they deployed and began to advance on the Austrians as the first gun teams to unlimber poured fire down on to the enemy formations below. It was hard to miss their targets and soon the French batteries were sweeping away files of Austrian soldiers and smashing the guns that were hurriedly brought to bear on Soult’s forces. The French infantry descended from the Heights, driving the enemy back before them at bayonet point. As the first Austrian battalions reeled back from the attack on their flank, they broke and poured away from the French, who were taking no prisoners.The fugitives ran straight into other units that were still holding their ground, and as the fear leaped from man to man like a contagion the Austrian army crumbled, battalion after battalion, and fled away from the French forces closing round them. There was only one line of escape, across the frozen lakes and marshes to the south, and soon the landscape seethed with men and horses desperately seeking a path over the ice.
Marshal Soult came riding up to Napoleon with a gleeful expression on his face as he pointed out the spectacle.
‘We have beaten them, sire! You have won a famous victory.’
‘Not quite yet,’ Napoleon replied in a grim tone, his eyes on the fleeing army. ‘We must make their defeat more crushing still, if we are to convince them to come to terms and end the war.’ He was silent for a moment before he turned to Soult. ‘Order your guns to open fire on those men.’
Soult stared at his Emperor for a moment and then responded quietly, ‘Sire, they are beaten. They can do us no harm.’
‘Not today. Not tomorrow, perhaps. But they will re-form soon enough, ready to face us again.We must remove that threat, Soult. Now carry out your orders, at once.’
Soult’s lips tightened into a thin line as he saluted and spurred his horse away from the Emperor towards the nearest of his batteries, which had ceased fire as the French infantry closed with any Austrian units that still offered resistance. As soon as the order was given Napoleon watched Soult move on to the next battery. Round shot howled over the heads of the Austrians streaming away from the battlefield. Thousands were slithering across the frozen lakes as the heavy iron balls fell around them, shattering the ice and pitching men, horses, gun carriages and cannon into the freezing water beneath. Many were carried under by the weight of their uniform and equipment, but the strongest flailed for purchase on the unstable chunks of ice, struggling for a while before the cold sapped their energy and they slid beneath the dark surface of the water to join their comrades. Napoleon watched in silence as his enemies drowned in their hundreds. It was a sickening sight, and he was tempted to order the guns to cease fire, but he reminded himself of the brutal necessity of breaking the enemy’s will to continue the fight. The more Austrians who perished in this battle the greater the chance of peace.
As the late afternoon sun angled down across the battlefield the guns and musket fire finally died away, and the quiet and stillness were strangely unsettling after the din of long hours of fighting. In the cool blue haze of a winter dusk Napoleon surveyed a landscape of bodies and wrecked guns and wagons. Smoke still swirled into the sky from buildings that had been set on fire during the fighting along the Goldbach stream. Most of the soldiers of the Grand Army sat on the ground, or leaned on their muskets as they looked on the devastation around them. Already the more opportunistic were walking amongst the heaps of enemy corpses looting the bodies of the dead, and finishing off any of the wounded who tried to resist their predations. Elsewhere thousands of Austrian prisoners were herded together under the watchful eyes of a screen of guards.
Napoleon bowed his head in a brief greeting as Soult rode up to him. ‘Congratulations, sire. A famous victory.’
‘It will be,’ Napoleon agreed. ‘Once Fouché applies a little pressure to the newspapers back in France.’
Soult chuckled at what he thought to be his Emperor’s self-deprecation. ‘A great victory by any measure, sire.’
‘We’ll know the measure soon enough.’ Napoleon gestured to the bloodied ground of the battlefield. ‘Have your men do a body count, then you send in your report to headquarters. I’m returning there now.’
‘Yes, sire.’
Napoleon could see that his sober tone had deflated Soult’s moment of triumph and he paused a moment before riding away. ‘You and your men were as gallant as any in the field today. Let them know that. And when I next have to call on them, I’ll be sure to grant them another triple issue of spirits.’
Soult laughed. ‘Thank you, sire. I will let them know.’
Napoleon spurred his horse into a gallop and crossed the Heights back to the village of Pratzen as darkness began to close in over the battlefield, hiding its horrors until the morning.The gloom was pricked with the fires being lit by the men of the Grand Army before they settled to sleep, exhausted by the day’s fighting and the fear and tension that had knotted their stomachs. There were a handful of the veterans of the Old Guard on duty around the army’s headquarters and they offered a cheer as the Emperor dismounted and entered the church. Inside, Napoleon found Berthier sitting at a trestle table making notes from the reports that had started to come in from all quarters of the battlefield.The chief of staff rose quickly to his feet and bowed.
‘Congratulations, sire.’
Napoleon waved aside any further words and cut in curtly, ‘What news from the left wing?’
‘Lannes and Murat have forced the Russians back. They are retreating towards Olmutz.’
‘Is Murat pursuing them?’
Berthier shook his head. ‘Marshal Murat reports that his cavalry are too weary to mount a pursuit, sire. Nearly all his force was committed today. His horses are blown.’
Napoleon was still for a moment as he thought. Crushing as his victory had been, the Russians might not have lost heavily enough to persuade them to consider peace. If they could only have been pursued and forced to abandon their artillery, if they had left behind a long tail of stragglers for Murat to deal with, then their spirit would have been utterly broken. Napoleon shrugged. ‘A pity. But then we are all tired.’
Thought of his men’s weariness served to remind the Emperor of his own exhaustion, and he could not help shivering for a moment. Berthier saw the tremor and his eyes widened in concern.
‘Sire, are you all right?’
‘I’m fine. I need some rest. Is there a bed in here?’
Berthier gestured to a small arched door opening on to a small cell. ‘In there, sire. A bunk belonging to the local priest.’
‘Good. I’ll sleep now. Wake me before the third hour. Have the reports ready to present to me then.’
‘Yes, sire.’
Napoleon wearily made his way into the priest’s humble sleeping quarters, where a single candle guttered in a bracket on the crudely plastered wall. There was a small table and stool, a cupboard, and the bed: a simple straw mattress covered in worn blankets. Napoleon undid the buttons of his greatcoat and spread it out on top, then sat down and pulled off his boots before easing himself under the blankets and laying his head on the rough hessian of the bolster. He was asleep almost as soon as he shut his eyes and Berthier smiled to himself as his master began to snore. Then he turned back to his reports and began calculating the cost of victory.
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