On this day 1809…the fall of Austria

On this day in 1809 Napoleon Bonaparte defeated the forces of Habsburg Austria in the vineyards outside Vienna at the brutal and bloody Battle of Wagram.

Napoleon at Wagram by Horace Vernet

The ‘Danube Campaign’ as it is known began earlier in 1809 when the Austrians attempted to knock Napoleon’s ally, Bavaria, out of the War of the Fifth Coalition.

The Austrian invasion of Bavaria had been checked at Eckmühl in late April however and the army commanded by Archduke Charles had retreated, ceding Vienna to the pursuing French and forming up on the broad flat plains on the eastern side of the Danube.

There a month later on 21 May Charles inflicted a sharp reverse on Napoleon at the Battle of Aspern-Essling.

A month later, having licked his wounds and formulated a new plan, Napoleon crossed the Danube again on the night of 4 July just to the south of Lobau which at that time was an island in the middle of the much broader river.

His movements were masked by a huge thunderstorm which, while convenient, was likely a miserable experience for his soldiers crossing or waiting to cross the Danube.

One French officer, Elzéar Blaze, remembered in his memoirs years later: “In the evening there were about fifteen officers of us together at a suttler’s, where we strove to neutralize the effect of the rain by copious libations of mulled wine.”

Although Napoleon’s soldiers may have grumbled at the apparently capricious whim of their emperor, his night manoeuvres meant his army neatly outflanked the Austrian redoubts that had been set up around Aspern and compelled Charles to withdraw his army back to Wagram (today Deutsch-Wagram).

On the morning of 5 July the two armies faced each other over a broad, flat, vineyard-dotted plain with vines more densely concentrated around the villages and hamlets on the flanks and centre of the Austrian line.

With over 150,000 men on each side the Battle of Wagram was the largest battle ever fought at the time and would remain unmatched until the Battle of Leipzig in 1813.

It was also exceptionally bloody, lasting two days and with 30-40,000 casualties on each side. The flat plain was excellent terrain for artillery and one French attack in particular, by MacDonald’s corps, was badly shot up by the Austrian guns and infantry as it pressed towards the enemy line towards the end of the battle.

Wagram also saw the death of the ultimate hussar, General Lasalle. On the night of the 4^th while readying to cross the Danube he reportedly opened his travelling case to find a full bottle of wine and a smashed wine glass. Taking it as a sign of his impending death when ordered to lead a charge to relieve the pressure on MacDonald he did not even draw his sword but charged headlong at the Austrians flourishing his long-stemmed German pipe. He was shot and killed just as his men broke through the enemy lines.

There was also fierce fighting in the small villages of Aderklaa and Markgrafnusiedel and, after the battle, many soldiers made their way there looking for shelter, food and drink.

Blaze recalls how some French soldiers on entering a house found some Austrians tucking into the contents of the cellar, “half-tipsy and making no hostile demonstration. They drank with them, and the two parties were soon on the best possible terms.”

They were not the only ones making the most of some refreshment after the epic clash, as Blaze continued: “The whole French army was drunk the night after the Battle of Wagram. It lay in vineyards, and in Austria the cellars are situated in the grounds upon which the wine is grown*. The vintage was good**, the quantity abundant, the soldiers drank immoderately; and the Austrians, had they but known we were overcome with liquor and sleep, and made a sudden attack upon us in the night, might have put us completely to rout.”

But they did not and although it was not a victory in the vein of Austerlitz or Jean-Auerstadt, Austria capitulated shortly afterwards. Napoleon secured the peace by marrying the emperor Francis’s daughter Marie Louise.

With the exception of the fighting in Spain, Europe now settled into an uneasy peace over the course of 1810 and 1811, until, that is, Napoleon felt strong enough to march on Russia in the spring of 1812.

*Suggesting in France they were not?

**He presumably means the previous year’s crop.