Revolutionary Europe, 1789-1815

by H. Morse Stephens

Battle of Aspern. 21st and 22nd May 1809.

In April 1809 the Archduke Charles, amid the greatest enthusiasm of the Austrian people, issued a manifesto to the German race, and at the head of 170,000 men advanced into Bavaria. At the same time another army, under the Archduke John, invaded Italy. At that moment Napoleon had only two corps d’armée in Southern Germany, one under the command of Marshal Davout at Ratisbon, and the other under Marshal Masséna at Augsburg. The Archduke Charles intended to get between the two marshals and defeat them separately. But Napoleon arrived in person, with some of the finest troops he had been employing in Spain, before the Archduke could complete his operations. On the 20th of April he defeated the Austrian left at Abensberg, and on the 22d he routed the Austrian right under the Archduke in person at Eckmühl. In the five days’ fighting, which included these battles, the Austrians lost 7000 men in killed and wounded, and 23,000 prisoners. In the result it was the Austrians, not the French, who were cut in two, and Napoleon rapidly followed the Austrian left to Vienna. The capital surrendered on the 12th of May, and Napoleon then resolved to cross the Danube and attack the main body of the Austrian army under the Archduke Charles. He attempted to pass the river at the point where is situated midway the island of Lobau. When the greater part of his army had reached the island he pushed across to the other bank, and on the 21st and 22nd of May stormed the villages of Aspern and Essling. But on the evening of the second fight he found it necessary to withdraw into the island of Lobau, for his bridges of boats which connected the island with the right bank of the river had been swept away, and his ammunition had fallen short. The Tyrolese, too, had risen under Hofer, and Napoleon’s position was most critical. Nevertheless he determined not to retreat; the island of Lobau became an entrenched camp; stronger bridges were thrown from it to the right bank of the Danube; and reinforcements were summoned from different quarters.

Battle of Wagram. 6th July 1809.

The most important of these reinforcements were supplied by the French Army of Italy, which reached Napoleon in the island of Lobau on the 2nd of July. This army was commanded by the Viceroy of Italy, Eugène de Beauharnais, whose military adviser and principal subordinate was General Macdonald. The Viceroy had, before Macdonald reached him, been checked at Sacilio by the Archduke John, but after Macdonald’s arrival he pushed on rapidly. A decisive victory, which prevented the Archduke John from pursuing, was won over the Hungarians at Raab on the 14th of June, after which Eugène de Beauharnais was enabled safely to join the Emperor in the island of Lobau. With his army thus increased, Napoleon crossed to the left bank of the Danube on the morning of the 5th of July, at the head of 180,000 men, many of whom were Westphalians, Bavarians, and Italians. On the following day he completely defeated the Archduke Charles at the battle of Wagram, at which the Austrians lost more than 30,000 men. Though defeated, the Austrian army was not disgraced, and Napoleon himself said, when blamed for not following up his victory, ‘If I had had my veterans of Austerlitz I should have carried out a manœuvre which, with my present troops, I dare not execute.’ Had the Archduke John come up in time and placed himself under his brother’s command, the battle might have had a different result, and as it was, the Austrian Emperor need not have considered himself forced to conclude peace.

Treaty of Vienna. 14th October 1809.

The Emperor Francis, however, did not dare to risk the further event of war, and on the 14th of October 1809 he signed the Treaty of Vienna. By this treaty Austria ceded Trieste, Carniola, Istria, and a large part of Croatia to Napoleon, who added them to Dalmatia, which he had acquired at the Treaty of Pressburg, and made out of them the Government of the Illyrian Provinces. Francis also abandoned the Tyrolese, and ceded the greater part of Salzburg to the King of Bavaria, whose army, along with the Saxon contingent under Bernadotte, had played a great part in winning the victory of Wagram. He had to give up the whole of Western Galicia; the greater part of this province was added to the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, but certain districts were ceded to the Emperor Alexander, who in reply to the demands of Napoleon had despatched an army to act in that quarter against the Austrians. This action had still further incensed the Emperor of Austria against the Emperor of Russia, while it did not satisfy Napoleon, who complained that the Russians had not acted with sufficient vigour, and had been waiting to hear the result of the main campaign in the neighbourhood of Vienna. In Austria itself the most important result of the war was the retirement of Count Philip Stadion, who was succeeded as Chancellor of State by Count Metternich.

The Peninsular War. 1809.

Battle of Talavera. 28th July 1809.

During the campaign of Wagram the French armies left in Spain had been continuing their operations. Before the actual outbreak of war with Austria, Saragossa had been captured on the 21st of February 1809, after an obstinate siege, which proved to the French the mettle of their new opponents. The most important operations had been carried out in three quarters of the Peninsula. In Arragon and Catalonia, General Gouvion-Saint-Cyr acted with considerable skill in a campaign of which the main feature was the reduction of small fortresses, and his successor, General Suchet, steadily pursued the same policy. Both of these generals invariably defeated any Spanish army which met them in the field. From Madrid King Joseph had acted in two different directions. Marshal Moncey took Valencia; Marshal Victor defeated the Spanish army of the South, which was under the command of Cuesta, at Medellin; and General Sebastiani approached the frontiers of Andalusia. But in Portugal the French had again to meet the English, who had in the previous year defeated them at Vimeiro, and drawn them away to Corunna. After the departure of Sir John Moore’s army, Marshal Soult had invaded Portugal from the north and occupied Oporto. There is no doubt that if he had acted boldly he might have captured Lisbon, which was only guarded by a feeble division under Sir John Cradock. But Soult wasted his time in intriguing, it is said, for the throne of Portugal, until the English Ministry had time to reinforce Cradock, and to send Sir Arthur Wellesley to command the army in Portugal. Wellesley speedily dislodged Soult from Oporto, and drove his army in disorder back into Galicia. He then, following the example of Moore, invaded Spain, in the expectation of saving Andalusia. He met the French army in Spain, under the command of Marshal Victor, at Talavera. He repulsed the French attack on his position on the 28th of July, and had he been efficiently assisted by the Spaniards under Cuesta he might have won a great victory. As it was, his success prevented the French from invading Portugal, but it was not sufficiently decisive to save Andalusia. The French army was reorganised; the Spaniards were routed at the battle of Ocana, on the 12th of November, and the whole of the fertile province of Andalusia, with the exception of Gibraltar and Cadiz, fell into the hands of the French.

Expedition to Walcheren. 1809.