The Midnight Battle by the Danube
TRAPPED BY NAPOLEON’S FAULT
A startling and dramatic episode of the first campaign of the Eagles comes next. It took place during the second stage of the war; in the midst of Napoleon’s impetuous advance on Vienna down the Danube valley after Ulm. Intent on dealing a shattering blow at the advanced army corps of the Russians, which had reached Lower Austria and was making an effort to cover the capital, Napoleon made a false move, and left one of the headmost French divisions in an exposed position, temporarily isolated. It got trapped by the Russians at Dürrenstein, or Dirnstein, on the north side of the Danube, to the west of and about seventy miles up the river from Vienna; and was all but annihilated. There was nearly twenty hours of continuous fighting, including a night battle of the fiercest and most desperate character in which three Eagles were temporarily lost; fortunately to be recovered later among the dead on the battlefield.[8]
It was on an extemporised corps, specially placed under the command of Marshal Mortier, that the blow fell.
NAPOLEON’S CONCENTRATION IN REAR OF ULM
While Napoleon and the Grand Army in force advanced along the south, or right, bank of the Danube, Mortier had been detached across the river to hold in check any attempt to interfere with the main operations from the Bohemian side. A body of Austrian cavalry, under the Archduke Ferdinand, had managed to cut their way through from Ulm at one point just before the closing of the net round General Mack. With the aid of the local militia levies these might prove troublesome on the line of communications. To deal with them, three divisions, drawn from as many corps, were amalgamated as Mortier’s special corps, which numbered in all between twenty and twenty-five thousand men: Gazan’s division, lent by Marshal Lannes; Dupont’s, lent by Ney; Dumonceau’s, lent by Marmont. To keep Mortier in touch with the main body of the army, and that he might be reinforced in emergency, a flotilla of Danube craft was at the same time improvised, and placed in charge of the Seamen of the Guard, a battalion of whom had accompanied Napoleon for the campaign. The flotilla was to keep pace with Mortier and link him with Napoleon. Mortier crossed at Linz and moved forward; his three divisions each a day’s march apart, for convenience of provisioning. He marched so fast, however, that he outstripped the connecting boats.
THE DANUBE FLOTILLA STOPPED
At the moment the fighting opened, the flotilla was miles in rear. It had been stopped and its progress blocked near Moelkt, unable in the swollen state of the Danube to pass the dangerous Strudel, or whirlpool, there, raging just then, after the heavy autumn rains, with the force of a swirling maelstrom. The flooded river had made it extremely difficult work all the way, even for the picked Seamen of the Guard, to navigate with safety the assortment of boats and timber rafts, clumsy structures of logs and spars lashed together, 160 feet long each, and planked over, with cabins on the planks, which composed the flotilla. On them, together with a quantity of spare stores and ammunition for the army, convalescents and footsore men of various regiments were being carried, who, it was intended, would thus be on the spot to reinforce Mortier first of all in case of danger.
Immediately after passing Dürrenstein, the leading division, General Gazan’s, numbering some 6,000 men, unexpectedly stumbled across part of the Russian rearguard. All unknown to Mortier, the Russian army corps which had been entrenched in front of Vienna had abandoned its position and had hastily withdrawn north of the river, crossing a short distance from Dürrenstein.
Mortier, after clearing a narrow and difficult pass on the eastern side of Dürrenstein, with steep and rocky hills on one hand and the Danube on the other, first learned of the presence of the enemy by catching sight of the smoke of the burning bridge of Krems, which the Russians had set fire to after passing over. Then he suddenly found his further advance barred by troops with guns, who rapidly formed up across his path. The Russians took up a formidable-looking position, but the marshal decided to attack without waiting for Dupont to come up with the Second Division, or for the flotilla; both miles in rear. The sight of the burning bridge and the apparent haste of the enemy to get across the river, it would seem, misled Mortier into thinking that the Russians had been in action with Napoleon, and were in flight, trying to escape. He went at them without pausing to reconnoitre. He assumed that they were only making a show of defence. The troops before him he would sweep aside easily. Then he would press on and complete the rout of the rest of the Russians, whom he took to be retreating in confusion, screened by the force he saw, across his front. Confident of easy success, Mortier entered into the fight then and there.
A SURPRISE FOR THE MARSHAL
The sudden rencontre, as has been said, was a surprise for the marshal. Half an hour previously a battle had been almost the last thing in Mortier’s thoughts. His guns were on board a number of river boats which were being drifted downstream abreast of the troops, the artillery horses being led with the marching columns along the bank. The boats had been requisitioned a few miles back, so as to enable the troops to get on faster over the rough stretch of road through the Pass of Dürrenstein. The guns were hastily disembarked and raced forward into the firing line in order to stop a forward movement that the Russians, who promptly took advantage of the opportunity offered by Mortier being apparently without artillery, began by making.
The Russians came on and quickly increased in numbers, to Marshal Mortier’s further surprise. Were those beaten troops in full flight? They began to swarm down to meet the French; heading for the guns as these were being brought forward. The fight rapidly became general, and charge after charge was made by the Russians to carry Mortier’s guns. They captured them, but were then beaten back and the guns recaptured. Twice were the guns taken and retaken. The two French regiments nearest the guns, the 100th and 103rd, defended them with brilliant courage, their four battalion Eagles conspicuous in the forefront and repeatedly the centre of desperate fighting, as the Russians essayed again and again at the point of the bayonet to make prize of the gleaming emblems.
But more and more Russians kept joining in, and after four hours of very severe fighting the marshal began to get anxious. He had gained ground towards Krems, and had made some 1,500 prisoners; but every foot of the way had been stubbornly contested, and his losses had been serious.
Mortier after that left the troops, and with an aide de camp galloped back through the pass in order to hasten up Dupont. But the Second Division was still at a distance. Dupont’s men were still a long way beyond Dürrenstein and could not arrive for some time yet. Mortier could only tell them not to lose a moment, and then retrace his own steps. On his way back, to his amazement, he came upon a second Russian column in great strength in the act of debouching from a side pass and entering Dürrenstein. It had come round by a track among the hills on the north to take Gazan’s division in rear, and interpose between it and Dupont’s reinforcing troops. At considerable personal risk the marshal managed to evade discovery by the Russians. By following a devious by-path he at length got back to where Gazan’s division was; as before, in hot action and slowly forcing the Russians back.
TOO LATE TO CLEAR THE PASS
Mortier stopped the advance at once. He faced his troops about, and, while keeping off his original enemy, retreated; closing his columns and rushing all back as fast as possible to repass the defile of Dürrenstein and confront the new enemy on the further side, in a position he might hold until Dupont could reinforce him. But it was already too late. The French reached the entrance of the pass on the near side to find it already occupied by the Russians, who were pouring through in dense masses. There were nearly 20,000 of them on that side of him and 15,000 on the other, his former foes now fast closing in from behind hard on his heels. Mortier’s reduced ranks numbered barely 4,000 all told.
Owing to the high, steep rocks on one hand, and the river on the other, it was impossible to push past the Russians on either flank. All that could be done was to attack in front and try to cut a way through. That; or to surrender! With reckless impetuosity the French attacked, firing furiously and flinging themselves on the Russian bayonets; while their rearguard, facing round, kept their first foes back. For two long hours they fought like that; their ranks swept by the enemy’s cannon on each side. At length they forced the entrance to the pass: but they could get no farther. They had by then lost all their guns but two: but they still had all their Eagles. With bullet-holes through some of them, and their silken flags shot away or torn to tatters, the Eagles did their part. Now they were rallying-centres; now they were leading charges. There was hardly a battalion in which the first standard-bearer had not gone down.
All were fighting almost without hope, holding out in sheer despair as long as they had cartridges left, when, as that dreadful November afternoon was drawing to its close, suddenly, from beyond the far end of the pass was heard the booming of a distant cannonade. The soldiers heard it and hope revived. It could only be Dupont! Help, then, was coming! The despairing rank and file took heart again—but the hour of rescue was not yet.
They had four long hours more to go through; every hour making their terrible situation worse. At nightfall “our cavalry gave way, our firing slackened, our bayonets, from incessant use, became bent and blunted. The confusion became terrible. Things, indeed, could hardly have got worse.” So an officer describes. The enemy, in places, had got right in among them, but “our soldiers, being the handier and more agile, had an advantage over the great clumsy Russians.” Here and there “the men were so close, that they seized each other by the throat.” In the midst of the fiercest of the fighting the tall figure of the marshal was conspicuous. He was seen amid the flashes from the muskets “at the head of a party of grenadiers, sword in hand, laying about him like any trooper.”
“YOUR DUTY IS TO SAVE THE EAGLES!”
The Battalion-Eagles of the 100th, with their Porte-Aigles and a handful of soldiers, got cut off together, amid a surging mêlée of Russians. The major of the regiment, Henriot by name, the senior surviving officer—the colonel of the 100th, as also the colonel of the 103rd, had fallen earlier in the fight—saw what was happening and the extreme peril of the Eagles. Calling for volunteers, he got together some of his men, cut his way through to the Eagles, and rescued them. Major Henriot, after that, having saved the Eagles for the moment, determined as a last resource to attempt a forlorn-hope charge; to get beyond the enemy and reach Dupont with them. It might be possible to save them under the cover of darkness. One of the Porte-Aigles of the 6th Light Infantry with his Eagle, near by at the moment, joined the devoted band of men that the intrepid major now managed to rally round the Eagles of the 100th. With half a dozen stirring words Henriot called on them to follow him. “Comrades, we must break through! They are more than we, but you are Frenchmen: you don’t count numbers! Remember, your duty is to save the Eagles of France!” (“Souvenez vous qu’il s’agit de sauver les Aigles Françaises!”)
There was a hoarse shout in reply: “We are all Grenadiers! Pas de charge!”
They dashed at the Russians, Henriot leading, and, after fighting their way through the pass and nearly to Dürrenstein, fell to a man. Yet the three Eagles did not fall into Russian hands, thanks to the darkness. They were found next morning by French search-parties under a heap of dead, where the last survivors, fighting back to back, had fallen while making their final stand.
So desperate, indeed, did things look for the French at one time, a little before midnight, that some of his staff appealed to Mortier to make his escape and get across to the other side of the Danube in a boat, “so that a Marshal of France shall not fall into the hands of the enemy!”
But the gallant veteran flatly refused to listen to the proposal.
“No,” was his answer, “certainly not! I will not desert my brave comrades! I will save them or die with them! Keep the boats for the wounded,” he went on. “We have still two guns and some case-shot—rally and make a last effort!”
Almost immediately afterwards an opportunity did offer for the marshal to save them.
MARSHAL MORTIER.
A DASH IN THE DARK TO HELP
Two of Dupont’s regiments at that moment reached the battle. By persistent exertions, outstripping the rest of the Second Division, and continuing in the dark, guided by the flashes of the guns, they had made their way by a goat-path along the steep rocky slopes at the side of the defile and taken the Russians barring Mortier’s retreat in rear. Instantly the new arrivals flung themselves hotly into the fight. They were the 9th Light Infantry and the 32nd of the Line, that old favourite of Napoleon’s in the days of the Army of Italy, whose flag on the Eagle-staff bore, as has been said, the golden inscription which Napoleon had placed there—“J’étais tranquille, le brave 32me était là.”
The golden legend was of good omen for Mortier.
Their interposition put the Russian main force between two fires, weakening the attack on Mortier and compelling a portion of them to face about. Its effect was speedily felt, and at once; although a desperate effort by the two regiments to break through and join hands with Mortier, in which the Eagles of the 9th and 32nd were “taken and retaken,” was beaten back under pressure of numbers.
The arrival of the two regiments so opportunely put heart into all: Dupont’s whole division, declared the marshal, could not be far off. He himself would make an effort to meet him on the farther side of the pass.
“Then,” as is described by Napoleon’s aide de camp, Count de Sègur, “rallying and closing up the remaining troops, he brought up the only two guns left him. One was to point towards Krems and against Kutusoff’s troops; the other Mortier placed at the head of the column, in the direction of Dürrenstein. As all the drums had been broken he had the charge sounded on iron cooking-cans.
“At that moment the Austrian general, Schmidt, who had led the Russian corps from Dürrenstein, headed a final charge which was to strike a crushing blow and complete the destruction of our column. But Fabvier (the colonel in charge of Mortier’s artillery) heard them advance. Concealed by the darkness, he let Schmidt approach quite near. Then he suddenly fired the gun on that side, at the shortest range, in among the headmost of the attacking troops. The discharge threw the enemy into confusion and killed their leader. Into this bloody opening Mortier and Gazan precipitated themselves, overthrowing everything before them. Dürrenstein itself was retaken in the impetuous dash.”
It was indeed a tour de force; a sudden reversal of the fortunes of the fight. The feat in its complete accomplishment surprised even Mortier’s expectations. “The Marshal, in fact, could hardly believe his own success.” So an officer puts it. But he had done more than burst through the toils. As daylight next morning showed, the Russians, driven headlong, had abandoned six of their guns, and left in the hands of the French no fewer than twelve standards. Two of them were taken by the two Dupont regiments which had so gallantly flung themselves on the Russian rear.
That was as concerned honour and glory. As a set off, barely 2,000 remained of Mortier’s corps of 6,000 men. Two-thirds of the total when the roll was called next day were found to have fallen on the field.
THEIR FATE STILL IN DOUBT
Mortier’s men regained Dürrenstein, all in flames; set on fire by the Russians as they evacuated the village. But where was Dupont and his Division? They had heard Dupont’s distant guns just before dark; but except the two regiments who had been rushed forward independently, ahead of the main body, starting immediately after Mortier’s visit in the early afternoon, no help from Dupont had reached them. Gazan’s wearied survivors of the midnight battle dared not even yet lay aside their arms. The fight was not all over. The enemy were still near by; just beyond the outskirts of the village. Both the Russian divisions that they had been fighting with in front and rear had in the end united. Outnumbering Mortier’s men as they did by ten to one, the Russians would certainly turn back and be on them before long with re-formed ranks, eager to take vengeance for their defeat and the rough handling they had undergone.
But the end was near.
Suddenly, from the farther side of Dürrenstein, from the direction in which the enemy had fallen back, there came a violent outburst of firing. Immediately on that followed sounds of shouting. Then there was the trampling rush of a great host of men all making for the village. “With despair in our hearts we were preparing for another battle, when, in answer to our challenge of ‘Qui vive?’ came back, with electrifying effect, the answer ‘France!’ It was Dupont. At last he had arrived to the rescue of his Marshal.
“We recognised each other in the light of the blazing houses, and with transports of joy and gratitude and cries of ‘Long live our rescuers!’ our men threw themselves on the necks of their deliverers.”
In that dramatic fashion the battle of Dürrenstein reached its close. The Russians fell back under cover of the night, retreating up the lateral valley-pass, by which way at the outset they had worked their way round, guided by the Austrian general, Schmidt, to surprise and cut off Gazan’s division.
Napoleon, in his great relief at learning that Mortier had come through without disaster, for once blamed nobody. He knew that he himself was most of all to blame, for exposing to sudden attack a comparatively weak detachment of his army in the face of an enemy still full of fight, on the farther side of a deep and rapid river. “It seemed,” in Marbot’s words, “as if no explanation of this operation beyond the Danube satisfactory to military men being possible, there was a desire to hush up its consequences.”
BY WAY OF COVERING THE BLUNDER
By way of covering up his own glaring blunder Napoleon heaped praises on the troops engaged. He expressed unbounded admiration at the stand they had made. In the 22nd “Bulletin of the Grand Army,” issued from Schönbrunn, near Vienna, two days later, the Emperor declared that “le combat de Dürrenstein sera à jamais mémorable dans les annales militaires.” Gazan, he said, had shown “beaucoup de valeur et de conduite.” The 4me and 9me Légère and the 32nd and 100th of the Line, wrote Napoleon, “se sont couverts de gloire.”
CHAPTER IV
ON THE FIELD OF AUSTERLITZ
Austerlitz, the crowning triumph of the First War of the Grand Army, set its cachet to the fame of the Eagles.
Napoleon there lured the enemy on into attacking him at apparent disadvantage on ground of his own choosing. Then, availing himself to the fullest extent of the flagrant blundering of his assailants, he struck at them with a smashing, knock-down blow from the shoulder.
LURED ON TO MEET THEIR FATE
By making believe that his army was separated in detachments, out of touch, and beyond possibility of early concentration, and causing it to appear further that he had become alarmed for his own safety and was on the point of commencing a retreat, he decoyed them into a false move. He tempted the Czar Alexander, whose main force had arrived within a few miles of Vienna, and was confronting him, into making a rash manœuvre designed to cut his line of communications and defeat him before the second Austrian army in the field, under the Archduke Charles, hastening from the Italian frontier to join hands with the Russians, could reach the scene. In the confident belief that by themselves they outnumbered Napoleon at the critical point by two to one, with nearly 90,000 men to 40,000, the Russians made a risky flank march to interpose between Napoleon and his base, and drive him in rout into the wilds of Bohemia. They began their advance suddenly, on Thursday, November 2, but immediately afterwards wasted two days through faulty leadership. Before they could get within striking distance of Napoleon he had called in his detached corps and had massed 70,000 men at the point of danger. Foreseeing the possibility of the enemy’s move, his apparent disposal of the various corps had been elaborately arranged so as to ensure concentration at short notice in case of emergency.
From hour to hour during Sunday, December 1, the Russian army in dense columns streamed past within six miles of the French position in full view of Napoleon, all marching forward in stolid silence, intent only on getting between Napoleon and Vienna. No counter-move meanwhile was made from the French side. Strict orders were sent to the outposts that not a shot was to be fired. But by the early afternoon all was ready for action. Completely seeing through the enemy’s plans, Napoleon exclaimed in a tone of absolute confidence: “Before to-morrow night that army is mine!”
On Napoleon’s right flank, in a strong defensive position, stood Marshal Davout’s corps, thrown back at an angle to the main front of the army, so as to induce the enemy to extend themselves widely on that side before opening their attack. Marshal Soult’s corps, the most powerful in the Grand Army, formed the centre; supported by the Imperial Guard, Oudinot’s Grenadier Division, and two divisions of Mortier’s corps. Marshal Lannes’ corps, with Bernadotte’s, was on the left, as well as Murat’s cavalry. Napoleon proposed to allow the Russian leading columns to circle round his right flank and get into action with Davout. Then, as soon as they were committed to their attack in that quarter, Soult’s immense force would hurl itself on the Russian centre and break through it by sheer weight of numbers. Thus the Allied Army would be cleft in two, after which Napoleon would only have to fling his weight to either side for the enemy to be destroyed in detail. During Soult’s move, Lannes on the left flank was to hold in check by a brisk attack the Russian right wing and reserves, which would prevent assistance reaching the centre until too late to save the day. So the battle was planned; so it was fought and won.
Sketch Plan of the Positions of the Armies at the opening of the Battle of AUSTERLITZ
The Allied columns were seen during Sunday afternoon to be steadily moving southward over a high ridge opposite the French camp, crowned near the centre by the lofty plateau of Pratzen, the key of the position on the Russian side. They streamed along from the direction of the village of Austerlitz, a short distance away to the north-east, from which the battle took its name. A tract of low marshy country, the valley of the little river Goldbach, four miles across, with two or three hamlets dotting it here and there, connected by narrow cart-roads, divided the two armies. The French position, facing eastwards, was on a range of tableland along the west side of the valley of the Goldbach.
THE KEY OF THE POSITION
Monday morning came, and the “Sun of Austerlitz”—so often apostrophised by Napoleon in after days—rose in a cloudless sky above the early mists lying dense over the marshy ground of the low-lying valley between the armies. The dominating crest of the Pratzen plateau showed above the mist almost bare of troops. On the evening before it had bristled with Russian bayonets, glistening in the rays of the setting sun. Pratzen, the master-key of the battlefield, had been left unoccupied. The enemy’s corps had taken no measures to hold it in their haste to get forward to attack the French right wing, and cut Napoleon off.
Soult’s corps—the entire French army had been under arms since four o’clock—was ordered to descend into the valley before the morning mist dissipated as the sun rose. Under cover of the mist Soult was to get as close as possible to the foot of the Pratzen Hill, so as to be on the spot ready to seize the height immediately the battle opened on the right.
Napoleon waited, standing among the marshals on foot near the centre of the position, until between seven and eight o’clock. Then sharp firing suddenly broke out from the direction of Davout’s corps, and a few minutes later an aide de camp came galloping up with the news that the enemy were attacking the right wing in great force. “Now,” said Napoleon, “is the moment.” The marshals sprang on their horses and spurred off to head their corps.
So Austerlitz opened.
Its first brunt, as Napoleon had foreseen, fell hard and heavily on the French right wing; but Davout’s men there proved well able to maintain their ground. The sturdy linesmen on that side disputed every foot of the position at the point of the bayonet against four times their numbers.
Right gallantly, time and again, did the Eagles on that part of the field fulfil their rôle and take their part; now heading charges, now rallying round them the men who had sworn to die in their defence.
“SOLDIERS, I STAY HERE!”
The 15th Light Infantry—a corps in the ranks of which were many young soldiers, now under fire for the first time in their lives—stormed the village of Tellnitz, which the Russians had carried in their first rush on the French outposts. The leading battalion of the 15th drove the Russians out; and, dashing on beyond the village, met a reinforcing Russian column hastening to the spot. They charged it without hesitation, but could not break through, and then they began to recoil before superior numbers. The Eagle-bearer was shot down, and fell badly wounded. He had to leave hold of his Eagle, and amid the surging throng of soldiers in disorder it was in great danger of being trampled under foot and lost. Fortunately the officer in command, Chef de Bataillon Dulong, saw what had happened, and sprang from his horse and seized the Eagle. Holding it on high with one hand, he shouted to his men to stand fast. “Soldiers, I stay here!” he called. “Let me see if you will abandon your Eagle and your commander.” The act and words checked the disorder. The battalion rallied at once, re-formed ranks, and made head against the enemy until help arrived, when the Russians were driven back.
The Eagle of another battalion in the same division of Davout’s army corps, General Friant’s, the 111th of the Line, a little time later had its part. The 111th had suffered heavily in the earlier fighting, but towards eleven o’clock were called on to lead a counter-attack beyond the line of fortified hedgerow that the regiment was holding, against a fresh Russian column which was advancing with loud shouts and bayonets at the charge to storm their position. Immediately in front was a wide, open stretch of ground, across which a Russian battery, to cover the attack, was pouring a tremendous fire of shell, the bursting projectiles tearing up the ground as if it were being ploughed. Just as the order to advance was given, the Porte-Aigle fell dead. An old sergeant, Courbet by name, took his place. He seized the Eagle and looked round, for several of the men were wavering. They were unwilling to leave cover for certain death, as it looked, on the shell-swept space of open ground before them. Courbet climbed over the hedge, and, waving the Eagle and flag with both hands, stood by himself amid the bursting shells, some twenty yards in front. “Come on, comrades!” he shouted—“come on!” Then with the words, “A moi, soldats du 111me!” brandishing the Eagle, he ran straight at the fast-nearing Russians. “The effect,” says one who saw the brave deed done, “was electric.” The men streamed over the hedge instantly, re-formed line in spite of the cannon-balls, and, led by the grenadiers of the battalion, charged the approaching enemy, broke them, drove them before them, and seized the village in front, whence the Russians had made their advance.
The Eagle of the 48th, another of Friant’s regiments, in like manner was rallied in the moment of supreme crisis by the daring of its Eagle-bearer.
SUDDENLY FIRED ON BY FRIENDS
The Eagle of the 108th, which regiment was fighting near by, all but fell into the enemy’s hands through a blunder. It was early in the morning, at the very beginning of the fight, in crossing a marshy strip under cover of the mist, to take in flank the Russian attack. In the uncertain light another French regiment, the 26th Light Infantry, one of Soult’s regiments, moving about a hundred yards on the left of Davout’s men, mistook the 108th for the enemy, and fired heavily into it. The Eagle-bearer was among those shot down, and fell with the Eagle. This sudden blow from an unexpected quarter staggered the 108th. They fell back hastily to re-form in rear, leaving their Eagle, whose fall had been unobserved in the mist, lying beside its dead bearer on the ground. The loss was discovered just as another force of Russians, who came up in front, reached the place; but before they could carry off the trophy a charge forward by some hastily rallied men of the 108th recovered the Eagle and bore it back to safety.
So far then with Davout’s corps.
Soult, meanwhile, in the centre, was striking hard. His attack, in its effect on the Allied Army, was a complete surprise. Soult’s advance began the instant that the marshal, riding at full gallop from the presence of Napoleon, could reach his men. At that moment the third of the Russian columns in the order of march, pressing ahead to overtake the first and second, and join in the attack on Davout, had not long descended the southern slope at the foot of the Pratzen heights; while the fourth Russian column, a mile or more in rear, was just about to ascend the northern slope to cross the Pratzen Hill and follow.
Up the steep western hillside face of the Pratzen clambered Soult’s regiments. Unseen by the enemy at any point, without a shot being fired at them, or by them, until just as they were nearing the crest-line of the ridge, they emerged from the mists of the valley and seized the high ground.
They moved on a front of three divisions. Legrand’s was on the right, echeloned in the direction of Davout’s left flank so as to keep touch with that marshal. St. Hilaire’s was in the centre, advancing in a long line of battalions in attack formation. Vandamme’s division was on the left.
The Allied fourth column caught a glimpse of Vandamme’s men as they were climbing the last ascent, and raced forward to form up and bar their way. There were 14,000 troops in the column, half Austrians, half Russians; and the Czar Alexander with the Emperor of Austria rode with them.
MARSHAL SOULT.
In the uniform of Colonel-in-Chief of the Chasseurs of the Guard.
Attacking at once, the French broke through the Allied front line, and, after a hard fight—for the Austro-Russian regiments, fighting under the two Sovereigns’ eyes, resisted with desperate valour—forced it back on the second line with the loss of several guns.
GRAPE-SHOT AT THIRTY PACES
Again there the Eagles took their part. On the right of St. Hilaire’s attack, the brigade of General Thiébault became separated in the fighting with the Russian foremost line. Its three regiments—the 10th Light Infantry, the 14th, and the 36th—became separated, and one of them, the 36th, was for a time in danger of being overpowered by part of the Russian third column, which had faced about on hearing the firing in rear and was hastening back up the hill. Two Russian regiments raced up towards them on that side. Some Austrian infantry of the fourth column, extending in their direction, were at the same time coming at them on the left. In front the 36th was faced by two Russian batteries, which dashed up, unlimbered, and blazed away, firing grape and case shot at barely thirty paces; as well as by some Russian dragoons, who made as if about to charge. To keep the dragoons off, the leading battalion attempted to form square; but the men, breathless after their rush uphill, were in some disorder and for the moment out of hand. The square, while yet half formed, was then nearly torn to pieces by a staggering discharge of grape, and several of the men began to get unsteady. It looked bad for the 36th, when, of a sudden, Adjutant Labadie, of the First Battalion, snatched the Eagle from its bearer and ran out in front. He stopped short and held the Eagle-staff with both hands planted firmly on the ground. Then he called to the men, in a momentary pause while the Russian gunners were reloading: “Soldiers of the 36th, rally to the front! Here is your line of battle!” The men saw him, and obeyed. The disorder ceased. Quickly deploying to right and left, they dashed at the Russian guns. At the same moment the other two regiments of the brigade, led by St. Hilaire and the brigadier, sword in hand, came up at the pas de charge, bayonets levelled. The 10th Light Infantry brilliantly repulsed the Austrians on one side: the 14th on the other side drove Kamenskoi’s Russians back down the hill.
Supporting the 10th Light Infantry was the 59th of the Line, one of Mortier’s corps, of Dupont’s division, which had been sent forward to help in holding the Pratzen heights. Some of the Russian dragoons dashed in among them as they deployed to follow the 10th. A Russian officer cut down the Eagle-bearer and seized the Eagle. Sergeant-Major Gamier, the “Porte-Aigle,” struggled to his feet in spite of his wounds, wrested the Eagle back, and with his free hand fought with his sword and killed the Russian, saving the Eagle.
On St. Hilaire’s left, during this time, Vandamme’s division had had to fight its way forward against the Russians and Austrians of the fourth column, several battalions of which, with artillery, had rapidly taken post along a range of knolls towards the northern edge of the Pratzen plateau. Driving back at the outset six Russian battalions, which charged forward to meet them, springing up from the shelter of a dip in the ground, Vandamme’s men, “without firing a shot, with the bayonet only, advanced on the main enemy with shouldered arms, not replying to the Russian musketry.” When within forty yards, they halted, fired a volley, and dashed in with bayonets lowered. The attack was successful beyond expectation. The enemy before them were routed, and all their guns taken, with many prisoners. Then Vandamme received orders to wheel his division to the right and take in flank the enemy, at that moment in hot fight with St. Hilaire.
THE RUSSIAN GUARD COME UP
Vandamme was in the middle of the move when one of his brigades met with a sudden and unexpected disaster. Two battalions belonging to the 24th Light Infantry and the 4th of the Line, who fought side by side on the extreme left of Vandamme’s command, were all but annihilated. As they were wheeling round, the Russian Imperial Guard came up, hurrying forward from the Reserve, and set on them fiercely. It was just to the left of the village of Pratzen, as approached from the French side, on the farther side of the plateau. The Russian Foot Guards forced the 4th and the 24th Light Infantry back into some vineyards adjoining the village in disorder. The last to retire was the First Battalion of the 4th. They had hardly gained the edge of the tract of vineyards, when, without the least warning of their approach, coming up on their flank and unseen in the smoke and turmoil of the contest, a more formidable enemy still assailed them. The Russian Cuirassiers of the Guard, 2,000 horsemen, troopers of the finest cavalry in the world, came down on them, and charged them at a gallop on the flank. The Grand Duke Constantine, brother of the Czar, in person led the Cuirassiers. Disaster, hideous, overwhelming, crushing, for the two hapless battalions—that of the 24th Light Infantry was, in like manner, caught just beyond cover exposed in the open—was the instant result. They tried to form square at the last moment, but the Cuirassiers were on them before they could begin the evolution. Both battalions were practically hurled out of existence within three minutes.
HOW ONE EAGLE MET ITS FATE
They were ridden down, trampled on by the huge Russian horses, and slashed to pieces mercilessly by the giant Russian troopers with their long straight swords. Both battalions lost their Eagles. That of the 24th Light Infantry was picked up later on the field and restored to what was left of the ill-fated corps. The Eagle of the 4th was carried off by the Russians, and is now in the Kazan Cathedral at St. Petersburg. Yet it was lost with honour; bravely defended to the last. The Eagle-bearer was cut down. A lieutenant tried to get hold of the Eagle and save it; he, too, was cut down. A private then snatched it from the dead officer’s hands, and was in the act of waving it on high when he in turn was sabred and fell. The Russians made prize of the trophy at once, and it was carried direct to the Czar Alexander on the battlefield.
Napoleon, who had moved up near the fighting in the centre, witnessed the disaster with his own eyes.
The corps, as it happened, too, was one he had taken an interest in. The 4th of the Line had been in favour with him, and he had appointed his brother Joseph as its colonel when the 4th was at the Camp of Boulogne as part of the “Army of England.” He had, indeed, specially chosen that particular corps for its steadiness. He announced Joseph’s appointment to it in a message to the Senate on April 18, 1804, “in order that he should be allowed to contribute to the vengeance which the French people propose to take for the violation of the Treaty [of Amiens] and be afforded an opportunity of acquiring a fresh title to the esteem of the nation.”
In wild panic the survivors of the disaster fled to the rear, tearing by close past where Napoleon and the Staff were. “They almost rushed over us and the Emperor himself,” describes De Ségur, who as an aide de camp was close to the Emperor at the moment. “Our effort to arrest the rout was in vain. The unfortunate fellows were quite distracted with fear and would listen to nothing. In reply to our reproaches for so deserting the field of battle and their Emperor, they shouted mechanically ‘Vive l’Empereur!’ and they fled away faster than ever.
“Napoleon smiled pitifully. With a scornful gesture, he said to us: ‘Let them go!’ Retaining all his calmness in the midst of the confusion he despatched Rapp to bring up the Cavalry of the Guard.”
Rapp, another of the Imperial aides de camp, was also Colonel of the Mamelukes of the Guard. He was at the moment riding close behind the Emperor. Rapp darted off, and, after taking Napoleon’s order to charge the Russian Cuirassiers to Marshal Bessières, in command of the Cavalry of the Guard, he himself led their headmost squadrons forward; his own swarthy Mamelukes with two squadrons of Chasseurs and one of Horse Grenadiers. Waving his sabre and calling at the top of his voice, “Vengeons les! Vengeons nos drapeaux!” “Avenge them! Avenge our standards!” he led them forward at full gallop. “We dashed at full speed on the artillery and took them,” described Rapp in a letter. The guns were those of a Russian battery which had just come into action close by where the Guard Cuirassiers had charged. “The enemy’s horse awaited our attack at the halt. They were overthrown by the charge and fled in confusion, galloping like us over the wrecks of our squares.”
“WE FOUGHT MAN TO MAN”
But the Russians rallied quickly. Reinforced by the superb regiment of the Chevalier Guards, a corps in which all the troopers were men of birth, they came on to meet the French again. Just at that moment Bessières, with at his back the magnificent cavalry of Napoleon’s Guard, came up at full speed. Rapp’s squadrons rejoined, and both Imperial Guards met in full career. “Again we charged,” says Rapp, “and this charge was terrible. It was one of the most desperate cavalry combats ever fought, and lasted several minutes. The brave Morland, Colonel of the mounted Chasseurs of the Guard, fell by my side. We fought man to man, and so mingled together that the infantry on neither side dared fire, lest they should kill their own men.” They fought it out until the Russians gave back and broke and fled—in full sight of the Czar and the Austrian Emperor, who from some rising ground near by had been spectators of the desperate affray.
The survivors of the hapless First Battalion of the 4th of the Line had meanwhile recovered themselves. Rallied by their officers, they had been brought back into the battle. They returned with their nerve restored, now only anxious to make amends for the disgrace they had brought on the Grand Army. They were in time to join in the final advance beyond the Pratzen heights and cross bayonets with an Austrian regiment, from which they took its two standards. That feat, as will be seen, was to serve them in good stead later on.
The charge of the Cavalry of the Guard practically decided the fate of the day at Austerlitz. Napoleon at once brought up Oudinot’s Grenadiers, Bernadotte’s battalions, and the regiments of the Old Guard to further reinforce Soult’s divisions. The Allied centre was shattered and driven in at all points, and forced back for a mile-and-a-half beyond the field of battle. It resisted desperately to the last, and several fierce counter-attacks were made; but in vain.
THE DOG THAT SAVED AN EAGLE
In one of these the Eagle of the Chasseurs à Pied of the Imperial Guard had a narrow escape. According to the story it was saved by a dog—“Moustache,” a mongrel poodle that had attached himself to the corps and become a regimental pet. The Eagle-bearer of the First Battalion, to whom the dog was much attached, and whom he was following, was shot, and the Eagle dropped to the ground beneath the man’s body. An Austrian regiment was making a counter-attack at that point, and before the Eagle could be picked up, three Austrian soldiers ran forward to seize it. Two of them attacked the two men of the Eagle escort. The third was faced by “Moustache,” who kept him off, growling savagely and snapping at the Austrian from behind the dead body of the Eagle-bearer. The man dropped his musket, drew his hanger, and cut at “Moustache,” slicing off a paw. But in spite of that the dog managed to keep him off until assistance came. Then the three Austrians were bayoneted and the Eagle was saved. Marshal Lannes, on hearing the story, had a silver collar made for “Moustache,” with a medal to hang from it, inscribed on one side, “Il perdit une jambe à la bataille d’Austerlitz, et sauva le Drapeau de son régiment”; and on the other, “Moustache, chien Français; qu’il soit partout respecté et cheri comme un Brave.” “Moustache,” in the end, it may be said, died a soldier’s death. He was killed by an English cannon-ball at Badajoz, and was buried on the ramparts there, with a stone over him, inscribed: “Cy git le brave Moustache.”
The Allied centre broken through, the end came on swiftly all over the field of battle.
On Napoleon’s left wing, Lannes and Murat had engaged the Russian rear column (or right wing as they fronted to fight) immediately after Soult opened the main attack. They had done their part by holding in play the enemy in front, thus preventing the Allied troops on that side from moving up to reinforce the centre. There, too, as elsewhere, the Eagles of Napoleon’s battalions fulfilled their rôle; one Eagle in particular, that of the 13me Légère, achieving special distinction. When the Allied centre gave way, Lannes and Murat pressed forward impetuously, forcing their antagonists back, and driving them off the field to the north-east, past the village of Austerlitz.
Davout, on Napoleon’s right, finished his task at the same time; in no less workmanship fashion. As Soult swung round his victorious divisions to the right to take the Russian left wing in rear, Davout’s moment came and he gave the order to advance. Surging forward with exultant shouts the stout-hearted defenders of that fiercely contested side of the field swept down on the assailants they had kept at bay for five long hours. The Russians did their best to make a brave resistance, but the day was lost. Formed in close-packed columns they fell back, losing guns and colours, and hundreds of prisoners.[9]
VICTORS AND VANQUISHED
As darkness closed in, the last shots were fired at Austerlitz. Crushing and complete had been the overthrow. The Allied army fled in wild panic. It left on the field 30,000 men, dead, wounded, or prisoners, 100 guns, and 400 ammunition caissons. Forty-five standards were in the hands of the victors. Twelve thousand men in killed and wounded was the price Napoleon paid. It was a big price; but the victory to him was worth the sacrifice. At five next morning an aide de camp from the Austrian Emperor presented himself before Napoleon to beg for an immediate suspension of hostilities. The Emperor Francis himself had an interview with Napoleon during that afternoon, and, as the result, terms of peace—to include the Austrian Emperor’s Russian allies—were mutually agreed on; to be formally settled between the diplomatists as soon as possible, Pressburg in Hungary being named for the meeting-place.
We come now to the dramatic sequel to Austerlitz which awaited the ill-fated First Battalion of the 4th of the Line. They had to face Napoleon and render account to him personally for the loss of their Eagle. The dreaded interview came some three weeks later; at a grand parade of Soult’s corps before the Emperor at Schönbrunn—as it befell, on Christmas Day.
Napoleon, attended by the Imperial Staff, most of the marshals, half a hundred other officers of rank, and nearly as many aides de camp, passed down the long line of troops, congratulating most of the regiments on the parts they had individually taken on the different battlefields. In due course the Emperor came to the regiments of Vandamme’s division, ranged in their allotted place, the 4th of the Line among them. Its First Battalion, reduced by the disaster to a quarter of the normal strength, stood at the head of the regiment, looking gloomy and disconsolate, the only corps on parade without its Eagle.
Napoleon approached the place with a frown on his face and a look as black as thunder. He reined up opposite the battalion and addressed it in a loud angry tone.
“Soldiers,” he began hoarsely. “What have you done with the Eagle which I entrusted to you?”
The colonel of the regiment replied that the Eagle-bearer had been killed at Austerlitz in the mêlée when the Russian cuirassiers charged the regiment, and the Eagle had been lost in the tumult and confusion of the moment. There was no survivor of those who had seen the Eagle-bearer fall. The battalion, indeed, did not know of its loss until some time later. One and all deeply deplored what had happened, but they desired to inform His Majesty most respectfully that they, single-handed, had captured two Austrian standards, and implored his consideration on that account, begging that he would allow them to receive a new Eagle in exchange.
The whole regiment supported the colonel’s request with loud shouts, “réclama à grands cris.” But Napoleon’s countenance remained unchanged.
SCATHING CENSURE AND BITTER SCORN
He replied coldly and contemptuously: “These two foreign flags do not return me my Eagle!” Then, after a pause, he launched out into words of the severest censure and rebuke, telling the men that he had seen them with his own eyes in flight at Austerlitz. He poured bitter scorn on their conduct, “in phrases, stinging, burning, corrosive, which those present remembered long afterwards—to the end of their lives.”
Again the unhappy colonel pleaded his hardest for his men. He entreated the Emperor’s clemency, once more beseeching Napoleon to allow that they had wiped out the slur on their good name, and to grant the battalion a new Eagle.
Napoleon said nothing for a moment. Then he again addressed them in an abrupt tone:
“Officers, sub-officers, and soldiers, swear to me here that not one of you saw your Eagle fall. Assure me that if you had done so you would have flung yourselves into the midst of the enemy to recover it, or have died in the attempt. The soldier who loses his Eagle on the field of battle loses his honour and his all.”
“We swear it!” came the reply at once.
At that there seemed to come a change in the Emperor’s mood. He paused once more for a few moments, during which there was dead silence. Then he raised his voice: “I will grant that you have not been cowards; but you have been imprudent! Again I tell you that these Austrian standards—even, indeed, were they six—would not compensate me for my Eagle.”
He stopped short. He seemed to be musing for a moment, looking straight into the eyes of the men. After that, with a curt “Well, I will restore you yet another Eagle!” Napoleon turned his horse and rode on down the line of troops.
THEY FOUND THE OTHER EAGLE
It was quite true, as the colonel told Napoleon, that the regiment was unaware at the time that their Eagle had been lost. As a fact, search-parties—practically all the survivors of the First Battalion—were out on the day after Austerlitz hunting over the battlefield among the dead for their lost Eagle. By the irony of fate it was they who picked up and restored the Eagle of the 24th Light Infantry to their fellows in adversity; the Russians, it would seem, had not marked its fall in the confusion of the fighting. At any rate it was left where it fell and where it was found.
There was, as it curiously happened, no reference in the Austerlitz Bulletin published in France—the 30th “Bulletin of the Grand Army”—to the loss of its Eagle by the 4th of the Line, although the disaster to the battalion is reported. “Un bataillon du 4me de Ligne fut chargé par la Garde Impériale Russe à Cheval et culbuté.” That was all that was said on the subject. Yet, on other occasions later, when Eagles were lost, mention was made of the misfortune in one or other of the Bulletins, with, generally also, some remark by way of explaining away the unpleasant fact, and now and then a caustic comment by Napoleon. A picture connected with the incident was, however, painted—at whose request is unknown. It is now in the national collection of military pictures of the campaigns of Napoleon at Versailles. It shows the First Battalion of the 4th of the Line at the Schönbrunn review “presenting Napoleon with two Austrian standards taken by them from the enemy, and claiming in exchange a new Eagle for themselves.”[10]
This closing word may be said of the spoils of the Eagles at Austerlitz.
THE RECEPTION IN NOTRE DAME
The forty-five flags captured in the battle, with five others selected from those taken at Ulm, making fifty in all, were presented by Napoleon to the Cathedral of Notre Dame. With the trophies he sent this message: “Our intention is that every year on the 2nd of December a Solemn Office shall be sung in the Cathedral in memory of the brave men who fell on the great day.” The flags were borne in triumph, together with the trophies of the Ulm campaign,—120 captured standards and colours in all—through the streets of Paris on January 15, 1806, amid a tremendous demonstration of popular enthusiasm. “The behaviour of the people,” wrote Cambacérès, “resembled intoxication.” Four days later the Austerlitz flags were received at Notre Dame by the assembled Cathedral clergy, Cardinal du Belloy at their head, with elaborate religious ceremonial.
Said the Cardinal-Archbishop of Paris in his address from the Altar-steps: “These banners, suspended from the roof of our Cathedral, will attest to posterity the efforts of Europe in arms against us; the great achievements of our soldiers; the protection of Heaven over France; the prodigious successes of our invincible Emperor; and the homage which he pays to God for his victories.” Not one of the flags exists now. They disappeared mysteriously, in circumstances to be described later, in the early hours of March 31, 1814, the day on which the victorious Allies entered Paris, and Napoleon withdrew to Fontainebleau.
Fifty-four of the other trophies paraded through Paris, flags taken in the Ulm campaign, were presented by Napoleon, as has been said, to the Senate. In return a picture of the scene at the reception of the trophy-flags was ordered to be painted for presentation to the Emperor. It is now at Versailles.
The remaining sixteen trophies were divided by order of the Emperor. Eight were sent to the Assembly Hall of the Tribunate; eight to the Hôtel de Ville as a gift to the city of Paris.
Thus did France receive the first spoils of the Eagles.
“Soldiers,” said Napoleon to the Grand Army, in his Austerlitz Proclamation; “I am satisfied with you. You have justified my fullest expectations of your intrepidity. You have decorated your Eagles with immortal glory!”