Austerlitz: Napoleon and the Eagles of Europe (19 page)

Pressed by Napoleon and presented by Berthier with a written guarantee that all the information given was true, Mack agreed to bring the surrender forward and give up the city the next day, 20 October, to save his men further suffering. Yet in his confused state Mack did not think to oblige Napoleon to maintain the French army around Ulm until 25 October, as he would have been forced to do if he had not agreed to bring the surrender forward. Instead, only Ney’s VI Corps was required to hold their positions around the city until ten hours after midnight on 25 October, freeing up the rest of the army to march immediately against the Russians. Mack returned to Ulm and called his senior officers together. He announced his decision, informing them that he no longer held any hope for relief; that the French were in overwhelming numbers; and it was therefore pointless to remain in the city for another six days, where food had all but run out. Instead they would march out the next day. The assembled officers voiced their astonishment, followed by protests, threats, uproar and then finally resignation. The French were all around them and amongst them; there was no longer any other option. The army made preparations to march out, the rank and file into captivity and the officers on parole back to Austria.

Elsewhere, the last couple of days proved difficult for Archduke Ferdinand too. Arriving at Oettingen on 18 October, he was shocked to find only the remnants of FML Werneck’s column to meet him. Clearly, with the limited resources now at his disposal it was no longer possible for him to influence matters: instead he turned towards Bohemia, hoping to make good his escape. Granted permission to enter Ansbach, he departed Oettingen early on the morning of 19 October, yet even before the rearguard marched out they came under attack from GD Klein’s dragoon division. Schwarzenberg, commanding the Austrian rearguard, informed Klein that as they were now in neutral territory the attack should cease. Klein refused, considering it merely a delaying tactic, and stuck to his orders: to pursue relentlessly and attack wherever he found the necessity.

The main body of Ferdinand’s command arrived in Gunzenhausen about noon and prepared to make camp behind the village, leaving a battalion of grenadiers to defend the bridge over the river in front of the village. However, as Klein approached, with the French keen on battle, Ferdinand ordered his men to march on towards Schwabach on the Nürnberg road, detailing the rearguard to hold the French back as long as possible. Schwarzenberg continued to negotiate unsuccessfully with Klein, but with Murat now approaching too, Klein ended the discussions by taking captive the grenadier battalion at the bridge, despite protests that it was an unlawful act. Ferdinand pushed on rapidly, losing his baggage and few remaining guns to Klein, and arrived at Schwabach during the night before continuing on again towards Bayreuth after a few hours rest. Attacked vigorously on the afternoon of 20 October near Nürnberg, the rearguard lost many men, but by evening they rejoined the rest closing on Bayreuth.

Murat remained at Nürnberg. He had done enough. Following the receipt of Schulmeister’s information he had taken all the Austrian reserve artillery, maybe 500 wagons and captured virtually all Werneck’s column – covering some 100 miles in five days.

Archduke Ferdinand finally arrived at Eger (now Cheb) on the Bohemian border, and safety, on 21 October, accompanied by 1,500 cavalry: all that remained of his command.
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The campaign in Bavaria was over. Ever with an eye for the theatrical, Napoleon prepared the surrender ceremony with meticulous detail. In the morning, Marmont’s corps passed through the city and joined the rest of the troops on the north side of the Danube. Here they formed up on the high ground of the Michelsberg and Frauenberg in a great open square, with Napoleon surrounded by his Garde Impériale. At around 1.00pm the Austrian army emerged from the city through the Frauentor, and with their officers at their head, marched between the lines of French soldiers. Over 20,000 men paraded with drums beating, while the French musicians struck up too. Although most Austrian soldiers were glad their torment was over, others cried ‘Es lebe der Kaiser!’ in a final gesture of defiance. The staff officer, Count
Neipperg, wrote expressing the despair felt by the army, marching out ‘with rage in our hearts, despair in our souls … the shame which crushes us, the mud which covers us, are inextinguishable.’

Napoleon called the senior Austrian officers to him as the endless column paraded to the Neutor, where the infantry laid down their muskets and the cavalry handed over their mounts to eager, footsore French riders. Napoleon consoled his opponents on their misfortune and entered into discussions on the reasons for the war – which he laid firmly at Britain’s door.

And so ended the campaign of Ulm, the first stage of the war of the Third Coalition, brought to an astonishing end. Mack’s army – that was in his own words, ‘to form the anvil’ on which the Russian hammer would smash the French army – had ceased to exist. Yet the Russians were unaware of Mack’s dangerous predicament. None of the infrequent messages Kutuzov received from Mack or Ferdinand told of their defeats. At Ulm, Napoleon took the surrender of Mack and fifteen other generals, fifteen staff officers, between 23,000 and 25,000 men, and a vast arsenal of military equipment. Adding the losses suffered at Wertingen, Günzburg, Haslach and Elchingen – as well as those suffered by Werneck and Archduke Ferdinand during Murat’s pursuit – plus the garrison that surrendered at Memmingen, the total losses were around 50,000 men out of the 72,000 that entered Bavaria. Only Kienmayer, who was back on the Inn, escaped the French net, along with Jella
i
– for now – falling back on Vorarlberg.

Rapid manoeuvre and a unified central command contributed enormously to this remarkable achievement of the French army. Virtually all the significant engagements fell to Maréchal Ney’s VI Corps, with support from Murat’s Cavalry Reserve and Oudinot’s grenadiers, part of V Corps. The enthusiasm of Napoleon’s highly trained soldiers proved too much for the Austrian army, many of whom were raw and unprepared for active campaigning. But the influence on the campaign of Charles Schulmeister, Napoleon’s ‘Emperor of Spies’, was crucial. By his ingenious efforts he caused Mack to change his plans and keep part of his army in Ulm on 13 October after he had already determined to depart with his whole force. This gained time for Napoleon and allowed him to correct the mistake made by leaving Dupont’s weakened division isolated on the north bank of the Danube, when the rest of the army manoeuvred ineffectively south of the river. Then, taking payment from the Austrians too, Schulmeister attached himself to Werneck’s escaping column, passing to Murat details of his route and that of Archduke Ferdinand, leading to the capture of most of their men. Napoleon was not slow to recognise Schulmeister’s particular talents. As the Austrian army marched out of Ulm and into captivity, the emperor turned to his entourage and said, ‘Gentlemen, all respect to Charles, who I estimate highly, because he was worth an army corps of 40,000 men to me’.
¹³
For Mack the end of the campaign left him more isolated than ever. A French officer, keen to catch a glimpse of the defeated commander, approached an Austrian officer standing alone and asked him to
point out Mack. The officer replied: ‘the man standing before you is the unfortunate Mack in person.’

On the morning of 21 October Mack left Ulm and began his long journey back to Vienna. At the same time, far away, off the south-west coast of Spain, Vice Admiral Lord Nelson led the British fleet against Admiral Villeneuve’s Franco-Spanish fleet that finally sailed from Cadiz after two months’ inactivity. The ensuing British victory at Trafalgar ended forever the dream of a French invasion of Britain. William Pitt had achieved all his initial aims – to prevent any possible French invasion and remove her army from its threatening position on the Channel coastline. But in Vienna the news of Mack’s defeat had a devastating effect. With the Austrian army in Bavaria removed from the campaign, Napoleon turned to face the Russians, now forming the only obstacle between La Grande Armée and the Habsburg’s imperial capital.

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*
Napoleon to his generals, Ulm, 20 October 1805.

Chapter 9

‘From The Ends of the Earth’

‘This Russian army, that the gold of
England has transported from the ends of
the earth, shall experience the same fate
as those who we have just defeated.’
*

Pressing on with all speed, Kutuzov arrived at the border town of Braunau on 9 October and began to make preparations for the arrival of his exhausted army at the end of their gruelling 650-mile march. Having set out with just over 46,000 men on 25 August, this reduced within a few days to about 38,000 when one of his six columns was redirected towards the Turkish frontier. Although later recalled, they were not reunited until early November. Ordered to hurry to Braunau as swiftly as possible, the punishing march continued to take its toll on Kutuzov’s army, which began to arrive on 12 October. By the time the final column struggled in on 20 October he was down to 32,000 men, having been forced to abandon the stragglers and sick on the road to come on as best they could.

Information from the Austrians, who Kutuzov knew to be at Ulm, was limited. He received a letter from Mack written on the morning of 8 October. Although Mack had learned the previous day of the French march through Ansbach, he confidently informed Kutuzov that his position at Ulm was secure and he would hold it until the Russians advanced to join him. But later that day the Austrians suffered their first defeat at Wertingen and the campaign entered a new phase. That was the last Kutuzov heard from Ulm. The Russian commander pushed patrols across the Inn to seek information but generally remained in the dark.

Then, on 13 October, Kutusov received an unexpected – though welcome – Austrian reinforcement. Pushed back by the advance of Bernadotte, FML Kienmayer fell back to a position at Mühldorf, 25 miles west of Braunau.
Kienmayer formed the right wing of Mack’s army, but the sudden appearance of the French on the Danube forced him back, initially towards Munich, and then the Inn. The detached brigade under Nostitz fell back too and rejoined him. But neither officer could offer Kutuzov anything in the way of news from Ulm.

Having just arrived at Braunau, FML Merveldt, an Austrian officer with much military and diplomatic experience, took command of these formations and other Austrian detachments in the locality. This officer was keen to encourage Kutuzov to advance into Bavaria and offer some support to Mack, but the Russian commander wisely would have none of it while his troops were still assembling.

Gradually, snippets of information trickled into Braunau from Ulm, hinting at a setback for the Austrian army. But only on 23 October did the startling truth become clear. On that day, an ‘elderly gentleman’ – or so he was described by a Russian officer who saw him – arrived in Braunau, requesting an audience with Kutuzov. To the Russian commander’s surprise it was Mack in person. Released by Napoleon, Mack, a mere shadow of the man who had marched through the town so full of confidence and enthusiasm forty-six days earlier, was starting out on his melancholy journey back to Vienna. He described to Kutuzov the disasters that led to the surrender of his army and urged him not to venture forward against Napoleon’s overwhelming numbers. Kutuzov suddenly felt very exposed. No news whatsoever had filtered through from the other Russian columns last heard of on the eastern border of Prussia, and now he found himself isolated, on what was the frontline, with perhaps a maximum 50,000 Russian and Austrian troops under his command. He did not require any further encouragement to abandon plans for a forward movement into Bavaria.

The news was rapidly relayed to Vienna, from where the kaiser, overcoming the shock and horror of the moment, wrote back immediately. He urged Kutuzov to ‘avoid defeat, keep the troops intact and unharmed’. Furthermore, he should ‘not enter battle with Napoleon, but hold him back every step of the way, allowing the Archdukes Charles and John and the corps from Russia to reach the theatre of war’.
¹
Unimpressed, Kutuzov responded to the kaiser that if he was required to oppose every step of the enemy, then inevitably he would be drawn into a battle, which if it escalated, may result in defeat.