The war drama of the Eagles

by Edward Fraser

HOW WERE THEY TO SAVE THE EAGLE?

But the regimental Eagle? What was to become of that? The Eagle of the 65th must at all cost be kept from being surrendered into an enemy’s hands. What was to be done? At first it was suggested that an officer, known to be a good swimmer, should try to swim down the river with it in the dark until he could land safely on the farther bank, after which he should do his best to make his way to wherever Napoleon might be, there to render personally into his hands the sacred Eagle. But the other surviving officers were loth to part with their treasured standard in that way. The risk of a man getting through the Austrians who were swarming on the other side of the Danube was considered too great. It was then suggested to sink it in the Danube, noting the spot, so as to be able to fish it up again on some future day. Colonel Coutard, in command of the 65th, however, was against that. They might never be able, or have time, to find it at the bottom of a deep and swiftly flowing river like the Danube. He proposed to conceal the Eagle in the ground, burying it in some secret place. There it might without difficulty be recovered later on and brought back to France. The colonel’s proposal was assented to, and then a further suggestion was made. Their Eagle should be given a fitting shroud by wrapping round it the captured Austrian flags they had taken that afternoon. That would preserve the trophies also for future days when the fortune of war again favoured the regiment. The idea was eagerly taken up, and the Eagle was buried in a cellar, wrapped up in the Austrian flags.

WRAPPED UP IN CAPTURED FLAGS

After that, at the very last, just as the Austrians were about to launch another attack it was impossible to withstand, Colonel Coutard had the chamade beaten, and the 65th surrendered. They were granted, as they well deserved, the honours of war, and were for the time being confined under guard in the city. Their captivity, however, was not for long. Their release came about in a very few days on the Austrian troops hurriedly evacuating Ratisbon before Napoleon’s triumphant advance.[22] The Eagle was now dug up, and Colonel Coutard, with a deputation from the regiment, waited on Napoleon on his arrival, to present the Eagle before him, still wrapped up in the three captured Austrian flags.

In recognition of the endurance that the 65th had shown, the colonel was created a Baron of the Empire; crosses of the Legion of Honour were distributed broadcast among all ranks; forty soldiers who had shown exceptional gallantry in the fighting were, as a reward, specially transferred to the Old Guard.

Such is the fine story that the battle-honour “Wagram, 1809,” lettered in gold on the regimental tricolor of the present-day 65th of the Line in the French Army commemorates, and care is taken that every young soldier on joining is made acquainted with it.

Equally fine as an exploit, and yet more renowned for the exceptional honour that Napoleon paid to the Eagle of the regiment, was the splendid heroism that the 84th of the Line displayed at Grätz in Styria. That episode of the campaign, indeed, is commemorated by a double battle-honour on the flag of the 84th of the modern French Army. Both “Wagram, 1809,” and “Un contre dix—Grätz, 1809” are inscribed in golden letters on its tricolor. Napoleon himself, as has been said, bestowed the honour of the unique inscription on the regimental flag. He had also the words “Un contre dix” incised on the square tablet supporting the Eagle itself. Here is the story of the exploit as related by one of Napoleon’s staff officers in the campaign, Colonel Lejeune:

KEPT OFF WITH THE BAYONET

“Amongst all these battles and victories there was one action so remarkable and so brilliant that I feel impelled to describe it here from the accounts of eye-witnesses. During the taking of Grätz by General Broussier, and when the struggle was at its fiercest, Colonel Gambin of the 84th Regiment was ordered, with two of his battalions, to attack the suburb of St. Leonard, where he made from four to five hundred prisoners. This vigorous assault led General Guilay on the enemy’s side to imagine he had to deal with a whole army, and he hurried to the aid of the suburb with considerable forces. Gambin did not hesitate to attack them, and he took from them the cemetery of the Graben suburb, but was in his turn invested by the Austrian battalions, and found it impossible to rejoin the main body of the French. He accepted the situation, spent the whole of the night in fortifying the cemetery and the adjoining houses, and, his ammunition being exhausted, he actually kept at bay some 10,000 assailants with the bayonet alone, even making several sorties to carry off the cartouches on the dead bodies with which his attacks had strewn the ground near the cemetery. General Guilay now directed the fire of all his guns and five fresh battalions on this handful of brave men, who had already for nineteen hours withstood a whole army. General Broussier was at last able to send Colonel Nagle of the 92nd, with two battalions, to the aid of the 84th. The enemy vainly endeavoured to prevent the two regiments from meeting. Colonel Nagle overthrew every obstacle, got into the cemetery, and after embracing each other the two officers, with their united forces, flung themselves upon the Austrians, took 500 of them prisoners, with two flags, and carried the suburb of Graben by assault, finding no less than 1,200 Austrian corpses in the streets. When the Emperor heard of this feat of arms, he was anxious to confer the greatest distinction he could on the 84th Regiment, and ordered that its banner should henceforth bear in letters of gold the proud inscription, ‘One against ten.’”

Seldom indeed did the soldiers of Napoleon encounter a more determined enemy than the Austrians proved themselves in the war of 1809. At Aspern, the battle on the Danube near Vienna, where Napoleon experienced his first defeat on the Continent, more than one Eagle came within an ace of being taken. The Eagle of the 9th of the Line, for instance, to save it from what appeared to be imminent capture, was actually buried on the battlefield in the middle of the fighting. “Our colonel,” wrote one of the men of the 9th, “took the Eagle of the regiment, pulled it from its staff, and, after digging a hole in the ground with a pioneer’s tool, buried and concealed there our rallying signal to prevent it from falling into the enemy’s hands.” It was, though, after all, an unnecessary precaution. The hard-pressed 9th were rescued at the last moment, whereupon the Eagle made its reappearance.