Austria declares War--Napoleon heads his army in Germany--Battles
of Landshut and Eckmuhl--Ratisbonne taken--Napoleon in
Vienna--Hostilities in Italy, Hungary, Poland, the North of
Germany, and the Tyrol--Battle of Raab--Battle of Wagram--Armistice
with Austria.... Progress of the War in the Peninsula, Battle of
Talaveyra--Battle of Ocana--English Expedition to Walcheren....
Seizure of Rome and arrest of the Pope.... Treaty of Schoenbrunn.
Napoleon had foreseen that Austria, hardly dissembling her aversion to
the "continental system," and openly refusing to acknowledge Joseph as
King of Spain, would avail herself of the insurrection of that country,
necessarily followed by the march of a great French army across the
Pyrenees, as affording a favourable opportunity for once more taking
arms, in the hope of recovering what she had lost in the campaign of
Austerlitz. His minister, Talleyrand, had, during his absence, made
every effort to conciliate the Emperor Francis; but the warlike
preparations throughout the Austrian dominions proceeded with increasing
vigour--and Napoleon received such intelligence ere he witnessed the
retreat of Moore, that he immediately countermanded the march of such of
his troops as had not yet reached the Pyrenees,--wrote (from Valladolid)
to the princes of the Rhenish league, ordering them to hold their
contingents in readiness--and travelled to Paris with extraordinary
haste. He reached his capital on the 22nd of January; renewed the
negotiations with Vienna; and, in the meantime, recruited and
concentrated his armies on the German side--thus adjourning, and as it
turned out for ever, the completion of the Spanish conquest.
On the 6th of April, Austria declared war; and on the 9th, the Archduke
Charles, Generalissimo of armies which are said to have been recruited,
at this period, to the amount of nearly 500,000 men, crossed the Inn at
the head of six corps, each consisting of 30,000; while the Archduke
John marched with two other divisions towards Italy, by the way of
Carinthia; and the Archduke Ferdinand assumed the command of a ninth
corps in Galicia, to make head against Russia, in case that power should
be forced or tempted by Napoleon to take part in the struggle. Napoleon,
having so great an army in Spain, could not hope to oppose numbers such
as these to the Austrians; but he trusted to the rapid combinations
which had so often enabled him to baffle the same enemy; and the instant
he ascertained that Bavaria was invaded by the Archduke Charles, he
proceeded, without guards, without equipage, accompanied solely by the
faithful Josephine, to Frankfort, and thence to Strasbourg. He assumed
the command on the 13th, and immediately formed the plan of his
campaign.
He found the two wings of his army, the one under Massena, the other
under Davoust, at such a distance from the centre that, if the Austrians
had seized the opportunity, the consequences might have been fatal. On
the 17th of April, he commanded Davoust and Massena to march
simultaneously towards a position in front, and then pushed forward the
centre, in person, to the same point. The Archduke Lewis, who commanded
two Austrian divisions in advance, was thus hemmed in unexpectedly by
three armies, moving at once from three different points; defeated and
driven back, at Abensberg, on the 20th; and utterly routed, at Landshut,
on the 21st. Here the Archduke lost 9000 men, thirty guns, and all his
stores.
Next day Buonaparte executed a variety of movements, considered as among
the most admirable displays of his science, by means of which he brought
his whole force, by different routes, at one and the same moment upon
the position of the Archduke Charles. That prince was strongly posted at
Eckmuhl, with full 100,000 men. Napoleon charged him at two in the
afternoon; the battle was stern and lasted till nightfall, but it ended
in a complete overthrow. The Austrians, besides their loss in the field,
left in Napoleon's hands 20,000 prisoners, fifteen colours, and the
greater part of their artillery; and retreated in utter disorder upon
Ratisbonne. The Archduke made an attempt to rally his troops and defend
that city, on the 23rd; but the French stormed the walls and drove the
Austrians through the streets: and their general immediately retreated
into Bohemia: thus; in effect, abandoning Vienna to the mercy of his
conqueror.
Napoleon was wounded in the foot during the storming of Ratisbonne, and
for a moment the troops crowded round him in great alarm; but he
scarcely waited to have his wound dressed, threw himself again on
horseback, and restored confidence by riding along the lines.
Thus, in five days, in spite of inferiority of numbers, and of the
unfavourable manner in which his lieutenants had distributed an inferior
force, by the sole energy of his genius did the Emperor triumph over the
main force of his opponent.
He reviewed his army on the 24th, distributing rewards of all sorts with
a lavish hand, and, among others, bestowing the title of Duke of Eckmuhl
on Davoust; and forthwith commenced his march upon Vienna. The corps
defeated at Landshut had retreated in that direction, and being
considerably recruited, made some show of obstructing his progress; but
they were defeated again and totally broken at Ehrensberg, on the 3rd of
May, by Massena, and on the 9th Napoleon appeared before the walls of
the capital. The Emperor had already quitted it, with all his family,
except his daughter, the Archduchess Maria Louisa, who was confined to
her chamber by illness. The Archduke Maximilian, with the regular
garrison of 10,000 men, evacuated it on Napoleon's approach; and though
the inhabitants had prepared for a vigorous resistance, the bombardment
soon convinced them that it was hopeless. It perhaps deserves to be
mentioned, that on learning the situation of the sick princess,
Buonaparte instantly commanded that no fire should be directed towards
that part of the town. On the 10th a capitulation was signed, the French
troops took possession of the city, and Napoleon once more established
his headquarters in the imperial palace of Schoenbrunn.
In the meantime, the Archduke Ferdinand had commenced the war in Poland,
and obtaining the advantage in several affairs, taken possession of
Warsaw; but the news of Eckmuhl recalled this division to the support of
the main army, under the Archduke Charles; and the Russian troops not
only retook Warsaw, but occupied the whole of the Austro-Polish
provinces. Alexander, however, showed no disposition to push the war
with vigour, or to advance into Germany for the support of Napoleon. In
Italy, in like manner, the Archduke John had at first been successful.
But after defeating Eugene Beauharnois, Napoleon's viceroy, and taking
possession of Padua and Vicenza, this prince also was summoned to
retrace his steps, in consequence of the catastrophe at Eckmuhl. Eugene
pursued him into Hungary, and defeated him in a great battle at Raab.
Colonel Schill, the Prussian partisan already mentioned, had availed
himself of the concentration of Napoleon's troops for the Austrian
campaign, to take up arms, though without any authority from his
sovereign, in the hope that the national resentment would burst out in
an universal insurrection; and the Duke of Brunswick, son to him who was
mortally wounded at Jena, had also appeared in Lusatia, and invited all
true Germans to imitate the heroic conduct of the Spaniards. These
occurrences threatened a general burst of war wherever the _Tugend-bund_
and other patriotic associations had for some time been strongly
influencing the popular mind. The battle of Eckmuhl, however, diffused
new awe all over the north of Germany. The troops of Saxony checked the
Duke of Brunswick's progress, and Schill's heroic band were at last shut
up in Stralsund, where their leader perished in a sortie; thus, and only
thus, escaping the vengeance of Napoleon.
Among the mountains of the Tyrol, the native zeal of a few hardy
peasants achieved more than all the mighty population of Germany. This
ancient province of the house of Austria had been, in sinful violation
of all the rights of mankind, transferred to the hated yoke of Bavaria,
by the treaty of Presburg. The mountaineers no sooner heard that their
rightful sovereign was once more in arms against Napoleon, than they
rose (early in April), under the guidance of Hofer, a gallant peasant,
seized the strong passes of their country, and, in the course of four
days, made every French and Bavarian soldier quartered among them a
prisoner,--with the exception of the garrison of the fortress of
Kufstein. Napoleon caused Lefebre to march into the country with his
division; but Hofer posted his followers on the edge of precipices, from
which they fired on the French columns with the skill of practised
marksmen, and rolled down torrents of stones with such effect, that
Lefebre was compelled to retreat. Austria, however, having enough of
work at home, could not afford to sustain the efforts of these heroic
peasants by any detachment of regular troops. On the retirement of
Lefebre, they issued from their hills and wasted the neighbouring
territory of Bavaria; but the general issue of the campaign left them at
the mercy of Napoleon, who suppressed the insurrection, finally, by
overwhelming numbers, and avenged it by massacring Hofer and all who had
taken a prominent part in the cause of freedom.
These popular movements, however, could not be regarded with
indifference by him who had witnessed and appreciated the character of
the Spanish insurrection. Napoleon well knew, that unless he concluded
the main contest soon, the spirit of Schill and Hofer would kindle a
general flame from the Rhine to the Elbe; and he therefore desired
fervently that the Austrian generalissimo might be tempted to quit the
fastnesses of Bohemia, and try once more the fortune of a battle.
The Archduke, having re-established the order and recruited the numbers
of his army, had anticipated these wishes of his enemy, and was already
posted on the opposite bank of the Danube, which river, being greatly
swollen, and all the bridges destroyed, seemed to divide the two camps,
as by an impassable barrier.
Napoleon determined to pass it; and after an unsuccessful attempt at
Nussdorff, met with better fortune at Ebersdorff, where the river is
broad and intersected by a number of low and woody islands, the largest
of which bears the name of Lobau. On these islands Napoleon established
the greater part of his army, on the 19th of May, and on the following
day made good his passage, by means of a bridge of boats, to the left
bank of the Danube; where he took possession of the villages of Asperne
and Essling, with so little show of opposition, that it became evident
the Archduke wished the inevitable battle to take place with the river
between his enemy and Vienna.
On the 21st, at daybreak, the Archduke appeared on a rising ground,
separated from the French position by an extensive plain; his whole
force divided into five heavy columns, and protected by not less than
200 pieces of artillery. The battle began at four p.m., with a furious
assault on the village of Asperne; which was taken and retaken several
times, and remained at nightfall in the occupation, partly of the
French, and partly of the assailants, who had established themselves in
the church and churchyard. Essling sustained three attacks also; but
there the French remained in complete possession. Night interrupted the
action; the Austrians exulting in their partial success; Napoleon
surprised that he should not have been wholly victorious. On either side
the carnage had been terrible, and the pathways of the villages were
literally choked with the dead.
Next morning the battle recommenced with equal fury; the French
recovered the church of Asperne; but the Austrian right wing renewed
their assaults on that point with more and more vigour, and in such
numbers, that Napoleon guessed the centre and left had been weakened for
the purpose of strengthening the right. Upon this he instantly moved
such masses, _en echelon_, on the Austrian centre, that the Archduke's
line was shaken; and for a moment it seemed as if victory was secure.
At this critical moment, by means of Austrian fireships suddenly sent
down the swollen and rapid river, the bridge connecting the island of
Lobau with the right bank was wholly swept away. Buonaparte perceived
that if he wished to preserve his communications with the right of the
Danube, where his reserve still lay, he must instantly fall back on
Lobau; and no sooner did his troops commence their backward movement,
than the Austrians recovered their order and zeal, charged in turn and
finally made themselves masters of Asperne. Essling, where Massena
commanded, held firm, and under the protection of that village and
numerous batteries erected near it, Napoleon succeeded in withdrawing
his whole force during the night. On the morning of the 23rd the French
were cooped up in Lobau and the adjacant islands--Asperne, Essling, the
whole left bank of the river, remaining in the possession of the
Austrians. On either side a great victory was claimed; and with equal
injustice. But the situation of the French Emperor was imminently
hazardous: he was separated from Davoust and his reserve; and had the
enemy either attacked him in the islands, or passed the river higher up,
and so overwhelmed Davoust and relieved Vienna, the results might have
been fatal. But the Archduke's loss in these two days had been great;
and, in place of risking any offensive movement, he contented himself
with strengthening the position of Asperne and Essling, and awaiting
quietly the moment when his enemy should choose to attempt once more
the passage to the left bank, and the re-occupation of these hardly
contested villages.
Napoleon availed himself of this pause with his usual skill. That he had
been checked was true, and that the news would be heard with enthusiasm
through Germany he well knew. It was necessary to revive the tarnished
magic of his name by another decisive battle: and he made every exertion
to prepare for it. Some weeks, however, elapsed ere he ventured to
resume the offensive. On the 4th of July he had at last re-established
thoroughly his communication with the right bank, and arranged the means
of passing to the left at a point where the Archduke had made hardly any
preparation for receiving him. The Austrians, having rashly calculated
that Asperne and Essling must needs be the objects of the next contest
as of the preceding, were taken almost unawares by his appearance in
another quarter. They changed their line on the instant; and occupied a
position, the centre and key of which was the little town of Wagram.
Here, on the 6th of July, the final and decisive battle was fought. The
Archduke had extended his line over too wide a space; and this old error
enabled Napoleon to ruin him by his old device of pouring the full shock
of his strength on the centre. The action was long and bloody: at its
close there remained 20,000 prisoners, besides all the artillery and
baggage, in the hands of Napoleon. The Archduke fled in great confusion
as far as Znaim, in Moravia. The Imperial Council perceived that further
resistance was vain: an armistice was agreed to at Znaim; and Napoleon,
returning to Schoenbrunn, continued occupied with the negotiation until
October.
In this fierce campaign none more distinguished himself than Lannes,
Duke of Montebello. At Ratisbonne he headed in person the storming
party, exclaiming, "Soldiers, your general has not forgotten that he was
once a grenadier." At the battle of Asperne his exertions were
extraordinary. He was struck, towards the close of the day, by a
cannon-shot, which carried off both his legs. The surgeons, on examining
the wound, declared it mortal. He answered them with angry imprecations,
and called with frantic vehemence for the Emperor. Napoleon came up, and
witnessed the agonies of the dying marshal, who blasphemed heaven and
earth that he should be denied to see the end of the campaign. Thus
fell Lannes, whom, for his romantic valour, the French soldiery
delighted to call the Roland of the camp.
The war, meanwhile, had been pursued with mixed fortune in the
Peninsula. Zaragossa, after sustaining another siege with fortitude not
unworthy of the first, was at length compelled to surrender in the month
of February. Sir Arthur Wellesley, being restored to the command of the
British army in Portugal, landed at Lisbon on the 22nd of April, and
immediately marched upon Oporto, which Soult had occupied early in the
year. Soult was defeated under the walls of the town, and forthwith
began his retreat towards Galicia, which he effected under circumstances
as miserable as had attended Sir John Moore's march on Coruna in the
preceding campaign. Sir Arthur was prevented from urging the pursuit of
Soult by the intelligence that Marshal Victor was laying Andalusia
waste, being opposed only by Cuesta, a bigoted old general, and an army
which had lost heart by repeated disasters. The English leader perceived
that if he marched into Galicia, Victor must possess the means of
instantly re-occupying Portugal; and resolved, in place of following
Soult, to advance towards this more formidable enemy. He effected a
junction with Cuesta at Oropesa, on the 20th of July, and marched along
the Tagus towards the position of Victor. He, however, having a force at
least double that of Wellesley, assumed the offensive, and attacked the
allies, on the 28th, at Talaveyra de la Reyna. The battle ended in the
total defeat and repulsion of Victor; but Wellesley found it impossible
to advance further into Spain, because Ney, Soult and Mortier were
assembling their divisions, with the view of coming between him and
Portugal. The English retired, therefore, to Badajos, and thence to the
Portuguese frontier.
On the eastern side of the Peninsula, Blake, advancing with the view of
recovering Zaragossa, was met on the 19th of June by Marshal Suchet,
Duke of Albufera, and totally routed. The central Spanish army, under
Ariezaga, attempted, with equal ill-fortune, to relieve Madrid. King
Joseph, accompanied by Soult, Victor, and Mortier, met them at Ocana on
the 19th November, and broke them utterly. In December Girona
surrendered to Augereau; and the intrusive King appeared to be in
possession of far the greater part of Spain. But his command extended
no further than the actual presence of his brother's legions. Wherever
they were posted, all was submission; beyond their lines the country
remained as hostile as ever. The soldiery of the defeated armies
dispersed themselves in small bands, watching every opportunity to
surprise detachments and cut off supplies; and, in spite of all their
victories, the situation of the invaders became every hour more
embarrassing. In Portugal, meanwhile, the English general (created Lord
Wellington after the battle of Talaveyra) was gradually organising a
native force not unworthy of acting under his banners; and on that side
it was obvious that, unless Napoleon made some extraordinary exertions,
the French cause was wholly undone.
Portugal was safe; and the character of the British army had been raised
by another splendid victory in Spain; but these were trivial advantages
compared with what Lord Wellington might have achieved, had his
government placed him, as they could easily have done, at the head of an
army of 80,000 or 100,000 men, while Napoleon was occupied with the
campaign of Essling and Wagram. Instead of strengthening Wellington's
hands in an efficient manner, the English cabinet sent 40,000 troops,
under the command of the Earl of Chatham, an indolent or incompetent
general, to seize the isle of Walcheren, and destroy the shipping and
works at the mouth of the Scheld; nor was this ill-judged expedition
despatched from Britain until the first of August, three weeks after the
decisive battle of Wagram had been fought and won. Lord Chatham took
Flushing, and fixed his headquarters at Middleburg; but Bernadotte
(Prince of Ponte Corvo) put Antwerp into such a state of defence that
the plan of besieging that city was, ere long, abandoned. A pestilence,
meantime, raged among the marches of Walcheren; the English soldiers
were dying by thousands. The news of the armistice of Znaim arrived; and
Lord Chatham abandoned his conquests. A mere skeleton of his army
returned to their own country, from the most disastrous expedition which
England had undertaken since that of Carthagena, seventy years before.
The announcement of the armistice with Austria put an end, in effect, to
all hostile demonstrations on the continent, the Peninsula alone
excepted. The brave Schill (as has already been said) was happy enough
to fall in the field: his followers, being at last compelled to
surrender at Stralsund, were treated as rebels, and died with the
constancy of patriots. The Duke of Brunswick, who had by this time
obtained considerable successes in Franconia, found himself abandoned,
in like manner, to the undivided strength of Napoleon. At the head of a
few regiments, whose black uniform announced their devotion to the one
purpose of avenging their former sovereign, the Duke succeeded in
cutting his way to the Baltic, where some English vessels received him.
Germany, in apparent tranquillity, awaited the result of the
negotiations of Vienna.
Napoleon, a few days after he returned from Moravia to Schoenbrunn,
escaped narrowly the dagger of a young man, who rushed upon him in the
midst of all his staff, at a grand review of the Imperial Guard.
Berthier and Rapp threw themselves upon him, and disarmed him at the
moment when his knife was about to enter the Emperor's body. Napoleon
demanded what motive had actuated the assassin. "What injury," said he,
"have I done to you?" "To me, personally, none," answered the youth,
"but you are the oppressor of my country, the tyrant of the world; and
to have put you to death would have been the highest glory of a man of
honour." This enthusiastic youth, by name Stabbs, son of a clergyman of
Erfurt, was, justly--no doubt--condemned to death, and he suffered with
the calmness of a martyr.
Buonaparte led at Schoenbrunn nearly the same course of life to which he
was accustomed at the Tuileries; seldom appearing in public; occupied
incessantly with his ministers and generals. The length to which the
negotiations with Austria were protracted excited much wonder; but he
had other business on hand besides his treaty with the Emperor Francis,
and that treaty had taken a very unexpected shape.
It was during his residence at Schoenbrunn that a quarrel, of no short
standing, with the Pope reached its crisis. The very language of the
Consular Concordat sufficiently indicated the reluctance and pain with
which the head of the Romish church acquiesced in the arrangements
devised by Buonaparte, for the ecclesiastical settlement of France; and
the subsequent course of events, but especially in Italy and in Spain,
could hardly fail to aggravate those unpleasant feelings. In Spain and
in Portugal, the resistance to French treachery and violence was mainly
conducted by the priesthood; and the Pope could not contemplate their
exertions without sympathy and favour. In Italy, meantime, the French
Emperor had made himself master of Naples, and of all the territories
lying to the north of the papal states; in a word, the whole of the
peninsula was his, excepting only that, narrow central stripe which
still acknowledged the temporal sovereignty of the Roman Pontiff. This
state of things was necessarily followed by incessant efforts on the
part of Napoleon to procure from the Pope a hearty acquiescence in the
system of the Berlin and Milan decrees; and thus far he at length
prevailed. But when he went on to demand that his holiness should take
an active part in the war against England, he was met by a steady
refusal. Irritated by this opposition, and, perhaps, still more by his
suspicion that the patriots of the Spanish Peninsula received secret
support from the Vatican, Buonaparte did not hesitate to issue a decree
in the following words: "Whereas the temporal sovereign of Rome has
refused to make war against England, and the interests of the two
kingdoms of Italy and Naples ought not to be intercepted by a hostile
power; and whereas the donation of Charlemagne, _our illustrious
predecessor_, of the countries which form the Holy See, was for the good
of _Christianity_, and not for that of the _enemies of our holy
religion_, we, therefore, decree that the duchies of Urbino, Ancona,
Macerata, and Camarino, be for ever united to the kingdom of Italy."
The seaports of the papal territory were forthwith occupied by French
troops, but Pius remained for some time in undisturbed possession of
Rome itself. On his return from Spain, however, Napoleon determined to
complete his work in Italy, ere he should begin the inevitable campaign
with Austria. General Miollis, therefore, took military possession of
Rome in February, 1809; the Pope, however, still remaining in the
Vatican, and attended there as usual by his own guards.
On the 17th of May, Napoleon issued, from Vienna, his final decree
declaring the temporal sovereignty of the Pope to be wholly at an end,
incorporating Rome with the French empire, and declaring it to be _his_
second city; settling a pension on the holy father in his spiritual
capacity--and appointing a committee of administration for the civil
government of Rome. The Pope, on receiving the Parisian
senatus-consultum, ratifying this imperial rescript, instantly
fulminated a bull of excommunication against Napoleon. Shortly after
some unauthentic news from Germany inspired new hopes into the adherents
of the Pontiff; and, disturbances breaking out, Miollis, on pretence
that a life sacred in the eyes of all Christians might be endangered,
arrested Pius in his palace at midnight, and forthwith despatched him
under a strong escort to Savona.
The intelligence of this decisive step reached Napoleon soon after the
battle of Wagram, and he was inclined to disapprove of the conduct of
Miollis as too precipitate. It was now, however, impossible to recede;
the Pope was ordered to be conveyed across the Alps to Grenoble. But his
reception there was more reverential than Napoleon had anticipated, and
he was soon reconducted to Savona.
This business would, in any other period, have been sufficient to set
all Catholic Europe in a flame; and even now Buonaparte well knew that
his conduct could not fail to nourish and support the feelings arrayed
against him openly in Spain and in Southern Germany, and suppressed, not
extinguished, in the breasts of a great party of the French clergy at
home. He made, therefore, many efforts to procure from the Pope some
formal relinquishment of his temporal claims--but Pius VII. remained
unshaken; and the negotiation at length terminated in the removal of His
Holiness to Fontainebleau, where he continued a prisoner, though treated
personally with respect, and even magnificence, during more than three
years:--until, in the general darkening of his own fortunes, the
imperial jailer was compelled to adopt another line of conduct.
The treaty with Austria was at last signed at Schoenbrunn on the 14th of
October. The Emperor Francis purchased peace by the cession of Salzburg,
and a part of Upper Austria, to the Confederation of the Rhine; of part
of Bohemia to the King of Saxony, and of Cracow and western Galicia to
the same Prince, as Grand Duke of Warsaw; of part of eastern Galicia to
the Czar; and to France herself, of Trieste, Carniola, Fruili, Villach,
and some part of Croatia and Dalmatia. By this act, Austria gave up in
all territory to the amount of 45,000 square miles, with a population of
nearly four millions; and Napoleon, besides gratifying his vassals and
allies, had completed the connection of the kingdom of Italy with his
Illyrian possessions, obtained the whole coasts of the Adriatic, and
deprived Austria of her last seaport. Yet, when compared with the signal
triumphs of the campaign of Wagram, the terms on which the conqueror
signed the peace were universally looked upon as remarkable for
moderation; and he claimed merit with the Emperor of Russia on the score
of having spared Austria in deference to his personal intercession.
Buonaparte quitted Vienna on the 16th of October; was congratulated by
the public bodies of Paris, on the 14th of November, as "the greatest of
heroes, who never achieved victories but for the happiness of the
world"; and soon after, by one of the most extraordinary steps of his
personal history, furnished abundant explanation of the motives which
had guided his diplomacy at Schoenbrunn.