Battle of Wagram

• 1. Introduction

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  The Battle of Wagram, fought on the 5th and the 6th of July 1809, was the largest battle in European history up to that time. Around 300,000 men packed a flat plain north of Vienna, and the artillery fire was so sustained it would reshape the strategic map of a continent. At stake was not merely territory but the survival of the Fifth Coalition, the Austrian and British-led alliance against Napoleon. A French defeat might have emboldened Prussia, triggered a German uprising, and shifted the course of the Napoleonic Wars. An Austrian defeat, as it turned out, cost the Habsburg Empire one sixth of its subjects and left it landlocked until 1813. The two days at Wagram posed a chain of pressing questions. Could Archduke Charles, Austria's ablest commander, translate his surprise tactical victory at Aspern-Essling two months earlier into a war-winning result? Could Napoleon, shaken by the first significant defeat of his career, rebuild an army fast enough to cross the Danube a second time? And would the promised conditions hold long enough for Austria to win: Prussian intervention, a British landing in the north, Russian neutrality?

• 2. Austria's Gamble

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  On the 9th of April 1809, without any declaration of war, the main Austrian army crossed the Inn River into Bavaria. The invasion was years in the making. Defeated at Ulm and Austerlitz in 1805 and forced into the humiliating Peace of Pressburg, Austria had spent the years that followed rebuilding almost from scratch. By 1809, the state was nearly bankrupt and acutely aware that it could not remain a great power without recovering influence in Germany and Italy. Vienna counted on three conditions: a mass nationalist uprising across Germany, Prussia joining the coalition, and Russia staying out. British subsidies and a promised military landing in northern Europe added to the calculation. None of those conditions would ultimately materialise. Napoleon had been forced to commit increasing numbers of troops to a grinding guerrilla war in Spain, sparked partly by his own decision to replace the Spanish king with his brother Joseph. The Battle of Bailen in 1808 handed the French a rare and resounding defeat on the peninsula and greatly encouraged the Austrian war party. What they did not fully reckon with was the speed of Napoleon's personal response. Maréchal Berthier, left in nominal command of the French forces in Germany, misread Napoleon's orders and left two entire army corps stranded in isolated positions. Charles advanced virtually unmolested for the first week. Everything changed on the 17th of April, when Napoleon arrived in person. Within days, French forces counter-attacked at Abensberg, Landshut, Eckmühl, and Ratisbon. Charles salvaged a coherent army by retreating north of the Danube, but Austria's best strategic window was already closing.

• 3. Aspern-Essling and Its Aftermath

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  Napoleon entered Vienna on the 12th of May 1809 only to find the Danube bridges blown. His rushed attempt to cross on fragile pontoon bridges, over an increasingly swollen current, began on the 21st of May and produced the Battle of Aspern-Essling. The main bridge broke during the fighting, cutting off reinforcements and ammunition. By nightfall on the 22nd of May, what remained of the French forces had retreated to the large Danube island of Lobau. The two-day engagement cost roughly 53,000 casualties, almost equally split between the two sides. For Napoleon, the personal losses ran deep. Maréchal Jean Lannes, one of his ablest commanders and a personal friend, received a mortal wound and died nine days after the battle. Louis-Vincent-Joseph Le Blond de Saint-Hilaire, created a Marshal of the Empire just a month earlier for his earlier campaign conduct, died of wounds before his baton could even arrive from Paris. General Jean-Louis-Brigitte Espagne was killed at the head of his cuirassiers. Artillery commander Nicolas-Marie Songis des Courbons fell severely ill and had to relinquish command. For Archduke Charles, the victory proved psychologically double-edged. His troops' morale improved, but his own analysis was bleak. He had failed to capitalise on numerical superiority. Prussia was still unwilling to join. There was no German uprising. Russia, France's nominal ally since 1807, was growing more aggressive against Austria in Galicia. Charles wrote to his brother Emperor Francis that "the first battle lost is a death sentence for the monarchy" and urged negotiations. Francis refused. The war would continue, and Charles's position was further undermined by his imperial brother and the war party at court, who corresponded directly with his chief of staff, General Major Wimpffen, and some corps commanders, maintaining an erroneously optimistic picture in Vienna.

• 4. Six Weeks on Lobau

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  Napoleon spent six weeks transforming Lobau island into a forward military base capable of launching a second crossing. Temporary hospitals went up for his 20,000 wounded. Warehouses and barracks followed. Starting on the 1st of June, General Bertrand directed vast engineering works that produced two strong bridges linking the southern bank to the island, protected against Austrian floating barges by upstream palisades. On the island's northern shore, pivoting bridges and landing craft were built for the crossing itself. A 124-gun battery was installed, and additional patrol ships gave the French near-complete control of the river by the end of June. Napoleon wrote in the Army Bulletin of the 2nd of July that "the Danube no longer exists for the French army." The army itself needed rebuilding. Officer losses from Aspern-Essling had been particularly severe and proved hard to replace. Despite all this, morale among the troops remained high. A striking measure of the difference in spirit between the two armies came just before the new crossing: Maréchal André Masséna, Napoleon's most senior corps commander, fell from his horse and badly injured his foot. Unable to ride, Masséna arranged to lead his men in battle from a phaeton carriage. On the Austrian side, General Johann von Hiller, commander of VI Korps, resigned on the 4th of July, the eve of battle, citing health reasons as a pretext. Charles meanwhile wrote to his uncle Prince Albert of Saxony, Duke of Teschen, that he would "strike one more blow against the French" but "risk nothing or as little as possible." By the time Napoleon was ready, the French and allied army numbered over 150,000 men in the vicinity of Vienna, facing an Austrian force of over 130,000.

• 5. The Crossing and First Day

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  Archduke Charles expected Napoleon to repeat the Aspern-Essling crossing from the northern tip of Lobau island. He built a chain of 16 redoubts between Aspern and Gross-Enzersdorf; an Austrian observer noted that only Turks would throw up such poor earthworks. The fortifications did not extend southeast along the riverline, leaving them vulnerable to a flanking move. Napoleon planned exactly that. Under cover of a violent thunderstorm on the night of the 4th of July, the French crossed instead from the east side of Lobau, bypassing the Austrian fortifications entirely. Oudinot's II Corps crossed first, with General Conroux's leading troops crossing by boat between nine and ten in the evening. Masséna's men followed at eleven. By just after two in the morning, Davout's four infantry divisions were crossing their appointed bridges. Some one thousand shells were fired onto the village of Gross-Enzersdorf, engulfing it in flames before Colonel Sainte-Croix stormed it with the 46th ligne regiment and took around 400 prisoners. By ten in the morning of the 5th of July, Napoleon had secured a bridgehead. The Austrian Advance Guard under Feldmarschalleutnant Nordmann paid a terrible price for its covering role. Starting with roughly 12,000 infantry, it was reduced to just over 6,000 soldiers capable of further action by the time it reached Markgrafneusiedl. When evening came, Napoleon ordered immediate attacks. The 57th Line regiment, styled "the Terrible," fought into the first houses of Baumersdorf before being driven back. Saxon troops from Bernadotte's IX Corps entered Deutsch-Wagram but dissolved into chaos when Generalmajor Hartizsch, bringing fresh reinforcements, saw white-coated men emerging from the village and ordered fire on what turned out to be fellow Saxons. By 23:00 the Saxon corps was completely demoralised, and every French evening attack had failed.

• 6. Charles's Double Envelopment

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  At around midnight, Archduke Charles issued orders for an all-out attack at 04:00. His intention was to use his longer battle line, around 18 kilometres against the French 10 kilometres, to take Napoleon in a double envelopment. The two corps farthest from headquarters, VI and III Korps, received their orders two hours late, towards 03:00. Given the distances involved, their commanders knew they could not reach their assigned positions by four in the morning. A second problem was Archduke John. Charles sent his message at 07:00 on the 4th of July, ordering his brother to march from Pressburg to Marchegg with all speed. Heavy thunderstorms delayed delivery by 23 hours. John only began his march at around 01:00 on the 6th. Without John's men, the Austrians could muster 113,500 infantry, 14,600 cavalry, and 414 guns. On the Austrian left, Feldmarschalleutnant Rosenberg-Orsini launched his IV Korps at 04:00 as ordered, with 18,140 men and 60 cannons. His attack briefly threatened Napoleon's right, but Davout's corps was already preparing its own offensive and met the Austrians ready. The sound of Rosenberg's cannon interrupted Napoleon's breakfast; French intelligence had misplaced John's army at 30,000 men when it was actually 13,000, and Napoleon rushed Nansouty's and Arrighi's heavy cavalry divisions toward the threat. By 06:00, Rosenberg was back at his starting positions, having lost no fewer than 1,100 casualties in two hours. In the centre, the most dangerous Austrian success came at the village of Aderklaa, which Bellegarde's I Korps found completely undefended after Bernadotte's shattered Saxon corps had withdrawn the night before. Its seizure threatened to unravel the entire French left wing.

• 7. Napoleon's Hammer

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  Napoleon's answer to Austrian pressure on his left was massed artillery. He redeployed IV Corps to stabilise the threatened flank, then assembled a grand battery that pounded the Austrian right and centre without pause. Austrian troops used lying-down tactics to reduce casualties from the barrage. In one sharp episode near Deutsch-Wagram, a battalion of Austrians took cover in a drainage ditch 100 paces in front of the village. As French columns marched toward it, the well-drilled soldiers rose and delivered a volley at close range; the source notes this action resembled what the coalition did at Waterloo six years later. When Napoleon launched a cavalry charge to blunt the Austrian advance, the Austrians met it with tightly packed battalion-mass formations suited to their many hastily trained soldiers. The formation held off the charge but temporarily halted the Austrian advance, buying time for French redeployment to take effect. On the French right, Maréchal Davout drove the decisive blow. His 31,600 infantry and 6,200 cavalry needed time to bridge the Russbach stream for artillery, so the main attack started later than planned. When it came, Davout's enveloping move from the east turned the Austrian left flank. Despite the failure of General Macdonald's frontal attack in the centre, Davout's pressure could not be answered. Towards mid-afternoon on the 6th of July, Charles admitted defeat and ordered a retreat, conducting it skillfully enough to frustrate French pursuit. He fell back to Bohemia with a cohesive force. French forces eventually caught up and scored a further victory at the Battle of Znaim. With fighting still ongoing, Charles requested an armistice, ending the war. The resulting Treaty of Schonbrunn stripped Austria of one sixth of its subjects, rendering the empire landlocked until the German Campaign of 1813. Napoleon granted his chief of staff Louis-Alexandre Berthier the victory title of 1st Prince of Wagram; Berthier had previously held the title of Sovereign Prince of Neuchatel since 1806, but the new distinction entitled his descendants to carry the titles of Prince and Princess of Wagram in perpetuity.