BEFORE THE ENEMY AT ASPERN AND WAGRAM
Napoleon’s regimental Eagles made their début on the battlefield in the
Wagram campaign of 1809, when Austria challenged Napoleon to a second
trial of strength in her premature attempt to achieve the liberation
of Germany. The gallant deeds of the regiments that fought round the
Eagles in that war are commemorated on the standards of the French
Army to-day by the legend “Wagram, 1809,” a name and date that stand
as the comprehensive memento of a conflict that lasted four months,
and included no fewer than ten fiercely fought battles. They are
superabundant as a fact; it would almost need a book by itself to tell
the full story. It must suffice therefore to take here only these,
picked out at random, as typical of the rest.
This is the achievement that “Wagram, 1809,” inscribed in golden
letters on the silken tricolor standard of the present-day 65th of the
Line, serves to recall.
Napoleon’s 65th was one of the regiments of Marshal Davout’s corps
at Ratisbon, where Davout had been stationed on the eve of the
outbreak of the war. He was hastily recalled on the Austrians opening
hostilities and advancing in greatly superior force. Davout fell back
at once, leaving behind him the 65th to hold the very important bridge
over the Danube at Ratisbon for forty-eight hours, until the bulk of
his corps had gained a sufficient start on their way.
The 65th had not long to wait for the enemy. Within twelve hours of
the marshal’s retirement the Austrians swooped down on Ratisbon to
seize the bridge. Two of their army corps led the advance. One took
possession of the city, sending troops forward to secure the bridge.
Part of the other crossed the Danube in the neighbourhood of the city
in boats, in order to cut off and capture the French troops left
behind. It was expected that in the presence of so overpowering an
enemy the single French regiment holding the bridge would not venture
to make a serious defence. The Austrians did not know the 65th.
To oppose the first comers three battalions of the 65th barricaded and
loopholed the houses nearest the bridge on that side. The remaining
battalion held a fortified outwork, or bridge-head, across the river.
For a whole day the battalions in the city held the Austrians at bay,
resisting desperately in the streets and from house to house. Four
hundred Austrian prisoners, together with an Austrian regimental
standard and three other flags, testified to the way they did their
duty. The battalion holding the bridge-head on the farther side of the
river made meanwhile a no less stubborn resistance and kept the enemy
off until nightfall. Then, however, it was found that their ammunition
was exhausted. The three battalions fighting the city were by that
time in a no less desperate plight. They on their side had been forced
back to their last defences among the houses immediately surrounding
the approach to the bridge. Still, though, they kept up a fierce
resistance, at the last using cartridges taken from the cartouche-boxes
of the Austrian prisoners and their own dead and wounded comrades. They
held out until further defence of the bridge was impossible, until
indeed further resistance at all was hopeless.
[Sidenote: HOW WERE THEY TO SAVE THE EAGLE?]
But the regimental Eagle? What was to become of that? The Eagle of the
65th must at all cost be kept from being surrendered into an enemy’s
hands. What was to be done? At first it was suggested that an officer,
known to be a good swimmer, should try to swim down the river with
it in the dark until he could land safely on the farther bank, after
which he should do his best to make his way to wherever Napoleon might
be, there to render personally into his hands the sacred Eagle. But
the other surviving officers were loth to part with their treasured
standard in that way. The risk of a man getting through the Austrians
who were swarming on the other side of the Danube was considered too
great. It was then suggested to sink it in the Danube, noting the
spot, so as to be able to fish it up again on some future day. Colonel
Coutard, in command of the 65th, however, was against that. They might
never be able, or have time, to find it at the bottom of a deep and
swiftly flowing river like the Danube. He proposed to conceal the Eagle
in the ground, burying it in some secret place. There it might without
difficulty be recovered later on and brought back to France. The
colonel’s proposal was assented to, and then a further suggestion was
made. Their Eagle should be given a fitting shroud by wrapping round
it the captured Austrian flags they had taken that afternoon. That
would preserve the trophies also for future days when the fortune of
war again favoured the regiment. The idea was eagerly taken up, and the
Eagle was buried in a cellar, wrapped up in the Austrian flags.
[Sidenote: WRAPPED UP IN CAPTURED FLAGS]
After that, at the very last, just as the Austrians were about to
launch another attack it was impossible to withstand, Colonel Coutard
had the _chamade_ beaten, and the 65th surrendered. They were granted,
as they well deserved, the honours of war, and were for the time being
confined under guard in the city. Their captivity, however, was not
for long. Their release came about in a very few days on the Austrian
troops hurriedly evacuating Ratisbon before Napoleon’s triumphant
advance.[22] The Eagle was now dug up, and Colonel Coutard, with a
deputation from the regiment, waited on Napoleon on his arrival, to
present the Eagle before him, still wrapped up in the three captured
Austrian flags.
In recognition of the endurance that the 65th had shown, the colonel
was created a Baron of the Empire; crosses of the Legion of Honour were
distributed broadcast among all ranks; forty soldiers who had shown
exceptional gallantry in the fighting were, as a reward, specially
transferred to the Old Guard.
Such is the fine story that the battle-honour “Wagram, 1809,” lettered
in gold on the regimental tricolor of the present-day 65th of the Line
in the French Army commemorates, and care is taken that every young
soldier on joining is made acquainted with it.
Equally fine as an exploit, and yet more renowned for the exceptional
honour that Napoleon paid to the Eagle of the regiment, was the
splendid heroism that the 84th of the Line displayed at Grätz in
Styria. That episode of the campaign, indeed, is commemorated by a
double battle-honour on the flag of the 84th of the modern French Army.
Both “Wagram, 1809,” and “Un contre dix--Grätz, 1809” are inscribed in
golden letters on its tricolor. Napoleon himself, as has been said,
bestowed the honour of the unique inscription on the regimental flag.
He had also the words “Un contre dix” incised on the square tablet
supporting the Eagle itself. Here is the story of the exploit as
related by one of Napoleon’s staff officers in the campaign, Colonel
Lejeune:
[Sidenote: KEPT OFF WITH THE BAYONET]
“Amongst all these battles and victories there was one action so
remarkable and so brilliant that I feel impelled to describe it here
from the accounts of eye-witnesses. During the taking of Grätz by
General Broussier, and when the struggle was at its fiercest, Colonel
Gambin of the 84th Regiment was ordered, with two of his battalions,
to attack the suburb of St. Leonard, where he made from four to five
hundred prisoners. This vigorous assault led General Guilay on the
enemy’s side to imagine he had to deal with a whole army, and he
hurried to the aid of the suburb with considerable forces. Gambin did
not hesitate to attack them, and he took from them the cemetery of the
Graben suburb, but was in his turn invested by the Austrian battalions,
and found it impossible to rejoin the main body of the French. He
accepted the situation, spent the whole of the night in fortifying
the cemetery and the adjoining houses, and, his ammunition being
exhausted, he actually kept at bay some 10,000 assailants with the
bayonet alone, even making several sorties to carry off the cartouches
on the dead bodies with which his attacks had strewn the ground near
the cemetery. General Guilay now directed the fire of all his guns and
five fresh battalions on this handful of brave men, who had already
for nineteen hours withstood a whole army. General Broussier was at
last able to send Colonel Nagle of the 92nd, with two battalions, to
the aid of the 84th. The enemy vainly endeavoured to prevent the two
regiments from meeting. Colonel Nagle overthrew every obstacle, got
into the cemetery, and after embracing each other the two officers,
with their united forces, flung themselves upon the Austrians, took 500
of them prisoners, with two flags, and carried the suburb of Graben by
assault, finding no less than 1,200 Austrian corpses in the streets.
When the Emperor heard of this feat of arms, he was anxious to confer
the greatest distinction he could on the 84th Regiment, and ordered
that its banner should henceforth bear in letters of gold the proud
inscription, ‘One against ten.’”
Seldom indeed did the soldiers of Napoleon encounter a more determined
enemy than the Austrians proved themselves in the war of 1809.
At Aspern, the battle on the Danube near Vienna, where Napoleon
experienced his first defeat on the Continent, more than one Eagle
came within an ace of being taken. The Eagle of the 9th of the Line,
for instance, to save it from what appeared to be imminent capture,
was actually buried on the battlefield in the middle of the fighting.
“Our colonel,” wrote one of the men of the 9th, “took the Eagle of the
regiment, pulled it from its staff, and, after digging a hole in the
ground with a pioneer’s tool, buried and concealed there our rallying
signal to prevent it from falling into the enemy’s hands.” It was,
though, after all, an unnecessary precaution. The hard-pressed 9th were
rescued at the last moment, whereupon the Eagle made its reappearance.
[Sidenote: VICTIMS OF A PANIC IN THE DARK]
Three other Eagles, less fortunate, are now in the Austrian Army Museum
at Vienna; those of the 35th of the Line and of the 95th and 106th. The
Eagle of the 35th was taken on the Italian frontier near Lake Garda,
in a surprise attack at daybreak on the camp of the Viceroy, Eugène
Beauharnais, by the troops of the Archduke John. The other two fell
into Austrian hands on the night of the opening attack at Wagram,
victims of a panic that suddenly seized one of the French columns.
It had led the attack on the centre of the Austrian position with
brilliant success.
Two thousand prisoners and five standards had been taken, and the
French were advancing exultantly, when the Austrians counter-attacked
with fresh troops, headed by the Archduke Charles in person. The
French resisted stubbornly, and at first successfully. They held their
own until, in the midst of furious hand-to-hand fighting, they were
suddenly charged by cavalry. It was late evening, and in the gathering
dusk a sudden panic seized a regiment on the flank. The panic spread
instantly to the whole of the attacking column. All order was lost
forthwith. The soldiers gave way in confusion, broke up, and went
racing back headlong, a mob of fugitives, down the steep ascent that a
few minutes before they had so gallantly won. As they went back in a
tumultuous rush, fresh French troops, coming up to their support, “in
the darkness mistook the retreating host for enemies and fired upon it;
they, in their turn, were overthrown by the torrent of fugitives.” The
Austrian prisoners taken in the advance escaped, the captured Austrian
standards were recaptured, and two Eagles disappeared in the dark amid
the turmoil. Those are the two now at Vienna.
Fortunately for Napoleon the Austrian leaders did not realise the
smashing nature of the blow they had dealt. The fate of Napoleon’s
Empire otherwise might have been decided on that night. Unaware that
the panic had “spread an indescribable alarm through the French centre
as far as the tent of the Emperor, they stopped the advance, sounded
the recall, and fell back to their original positions.”
Of the Eagle-bearers of four regiments at Aspern, the 2nd, 16th,
37th, and 67th of the Line, not one came through the day alive, but
the Eagles were saved. They were the four regiments that took the
village of Aspern and held it all day and till after dark--12,000
men against 80,000 enemies. The village was the all-important key of
the battlefield. Its defence was of supreme moment, for only part of
Napoleon’s army had been able to get across the Danube as yet, the main
bridge of boats having been broken down and swept away.
They had seized Aspern at the outset, but had been forced to fall back
before an Austrian counter-attack, returning after that to recapture
it, and hold it until the end.
Marshal Masséna led the onset that retook the village. “The Austrians,”
describes a French officer, “had entered Aspern, and it was absolutely
necessary to dislodge them. Masséna therefore, who had had all his
horses killed, marched on foot with drawn sword at the head of the
Grenadiers of the Molitor division, forced his way into the village,
crowded as it was with Austrians, drove them out, and pursued them
for some twelve or fourteen yards beyond the houses. But here the
French troops found themselves face to face with the strong force
under Hiller, Bellegarde, and Hohenzollern, advancing rapidly in their
direction. It was hopeless for the division to attempt to engage such
superior numbers in the open plain, so Masséna recalled the pursuers,
and ordered them to hold Aspern. The enemy, ashamed apparently of this
first defeat, returned to the charge with 80,000 men and more than a
hundred pieces of cannon, which were soon pointed on the village.”
[Sidenote: AT BAY IN THE BURNING VILLAGE]
It was impossible to stop the onrush of the Austrians. In spite of
every effort of Masséna, who with his artillery “opened fire upon
the densely packed masses of men, every shot working terrible havoc
amongst them,” they swarmed forward to the outskirts of the village.
A life-and-death struggle in defence began. “In a very few minutes
the village was completely surrounded by troops; and hidden from view
in the dense clouds of smoke from the cannon, the musketry, and the
fires which at once broke out, the combatants, almost suffocated by
the smoke, crossed bayonets without being able to see each other; but
neither side gave way a step, and for more than an hour the terrible
attack and desperate defence went on amongst the ruins of the burning
houses.”
It was during the Austrian opening attack on the outskirts of Aspern
that at one point a French regiment--the number of the regiment is not
given in any account--was forced apart from the rest, and driven back
in disorder beyond the village. Its colonel was killed, and, though
the Eagle was kept from falling into the enemy’s hands, the regiment
fell back in confusion. Napoleon witnessed the check and galloped to
intercept the troops as they were retreating. Riding into the midst
of the fugitives, he personally rallied them, and then called angrily
for the colonel. There was no answer from any one, and in high anger
Napoleon again called for the colonel. Then somebody made the reply
that the colonel was dead. “I know that!” answered Napoleon sharply. “I
asked where he was!” “We left him in the village.” “What! you left your
colonel’s body in the hands of the enemy? Go back instantly, find it,
and remember that a good regiment should always be able to produce both
its Colonel and its Eagle!” Napoleon’s stinging rebuke did its work.
The men at once re-formed and turned back. Charging forward with a
rush, they forced their way through to where the colonel had fallen and
recovered the body. Then they joined in with the other defenders at the
village, and did their duty to the end. The colonel’s body was brought
back and laid before Napoleon next morning.
[Sidenote: MARSHAL MASSENA UNDER FIRE]
The fearful contest in Aspern went on until four in the afternoon, by
which time the Austrians had succeeded in taking half the village. They
could not, however, get beyond that. “Masséna still held the church and
cemetery, and was struggling to regain what he had lost. Five times
in less than three hours he took and retook the cemetery, the church,
and the village, without being able to call to his aid the Legrand
division, which he was obliged to hold in reserve to cover Aspern on
the right and keep the enemy from getting in on that side. Throughout
this awful struggle Masséna stood beneath the great elms on the green
opposite the church, calmly indifferent to the fall of the branches
brought down upon his head by the showers of grape-shot and bullets,
keenly alive to all that was going on, his look and voice, stern as the
_quos ego_ of Virgil’s angry Neptune, inspiring all who surrounded him
with irresistible strength.”
Even when the sun went down “the struggle was far from being over,
and the awful battle was still raging in the streets and behind the
walls of the village of Aspern. The enemy, irritated at the stubborn
resistance of so small a body of troops, redoubled their efforts to
dislodge them before nightfall, and went on fighting by the light of
the conflagrations alone. The history of our wars relates no more
thrilling incident than this long and obstinate struggle, in which
our troops, disheartened by the ever-fresh difficulties with which
they had to contend, worn out by fatigue, and horrified by the carnage
round them, were kept at their posts by the example and exhortations of
Masséna and his officers alone. General Molitor had lost some half of
his men, and the enemy were hurrying up from every side. The struggle
was maintained under these terrible conditions until eleven o’clock,
when we remained masters of Aspern and of the whole line between it and
Essling.”
Five regiments of the French Army of to-day commemorate a splendid
Eagle-incident in the name “Wagram, 1809,” on their colours; the final
charge of Macdonald’s column which saved and decided the battle for
Napoleon, besides gaining a marshal’s bâton for the Scottish officer
who achieved the feat. That was on the final battlefield of Wagram
itself, the outcome of which tremendous encounter settled the fate
of the war. It was the culminating event of the battle. The crisis
was at hand for both armies when the order was given to Macdonald to
go forward. On the Austrian side the powerful and fresh corps of the
Archduke John was rapidly nearing the scene, and the fortune of the day
yet wavered in the balance. Napoleon, as his last hope and final effort
to break the stubborn Austrian array of the Archduke Charles’ host
which still confronted him, defiant still after ten hours of charges
and counter-charges, holding out tenaciously in a strong position,
massed his reserves and sent them at the centre of the Austrians, to
press forward in a vast column of closely formed battalions. They went
at the enemy with all the daring of a forlorn hope.
[Illustration]
[Sidenote: MACDONALDS’S COLUMN ADVANCES]
“Moving steadily forward through the wreck of guns, the dead, and
the dying, this undaunted column, preceded by its terrific battery
incessantly firing, pushed on half a league beyond the front at other
points of the enemy’s line. In proportion as it advanced, however,
it became enveloped in fire; the guns were gradually dismounted or
silenced, and the infantry emerged through their wreck to the front.
The Austrians drew off their front line upon their second, and both,
falling back, formed a sort of wall on each side of the French column,
from whence issued a dreadful fire of grape and musketry on either
flank of the assailants. Still Macdonald pushed on with unconquerable
resolution: in the midst of a frightful storm of bullets his ranks were
unshaken; the destiny of Europe was in his hands, and he was worthy of
the mission. The loss he experienced, however, was enormous; at every
step huge chasms were made in his ranks, whole files were struck down
by cannon-shot, and at length his eight dense battalions were reduced
to 1,500 men. Isolated in the midst of enemies, this band of heroes was
compelled to halt. The Empire rocked to its foundations: it was the
rout of a similar body of the Guard at Waterloo that hurled Napoleon to
the rock of St. Helena.”
[Sidenote: THE BATTLE WON AT LAST]
The five regiments which formed the spear-point of the attack had
paraded that morning 6,000 strong. They numbered now, the survivors,
less than 300. They were at the extreme point of the advance, but were
held fast and unable to go farther. The enemy were on every side of
them, for in the last moments they had pressed on beyond touch of the
troops that were following next. The Austrians saw their chance to
charge them and annihilate them before the approach of French supports
to the main column could get near. But General Broussier, the Brigadier
in command of the leading troops, knew his work and his men. As they
halted he rapidly rallied the fragments of the nearest regiments and
formed them in a single square. They drew up under the _feu d’enfer_
of cannon and musketry, three deep in front, with, in the centre, held
up on high, the five Eagles of the regiments; so as not to weaken the
front, the firing line, “the Eagles were held up only by men who had
been wounded.” Broussier marked the massing of the Eagles in the midst;
and, as the firing round them for one moment seemed to lull, raising
his voice, he called out for all to hear: “Soldiers, swear to die here
to the last man round your Eagles!” “Jurez moi, soldats, de mourir
tous, jusqu’au dernier, autour de vos Aigles!” were the Brigadier’s
words. But there was fortunately no need for all to die. At that moment
reinforcing troops came up, with the Young Guard at their head. The
column, on that, moved forward again with a steady front, “and the
Archduke, despairing now of maintaining his position, when assailed at
the crisis of the day by such a formidable accession of force in the
now broken part of his line, gave directions for a general retreat.”
The Eagles had done their part and the battle of Wagram was won.