It is unnecessary to follow all the Emperor’s movements on his march to the Imperial city. Bessières, with comparatively few troops at his disposal, came in conflict with a much larger force under Hiller, and was repulsed. The Marshal somewhat retrieved this mishap by crossing the Inn at Passau, where he took several hundred prisoners. These “affairs” were but skirmishes to the battle of Ebelsberg (sometimes spelt Ebersberg) on the 3rd May 1809 between General Hiller and the French vanguard under the impetuous Masséna, at which Napoleon was not present. Hiller had taken up his position at Ebelsberg, crossing the long wooden bridge over the turbulent Traun, a tributary of the Danube, to which admittance was only gained by an extremely narrow gateway beneath a tower, while the whole structure was at the mercy of the guns in and near the castle on the heights above. For purposes of defence the situation approached the ideal, the only thing needed being a skilful commander. The day proved that the Austrian general was lacking in nearly all the qualities possessed by the French officers who opposed him, and was unworthy the men who fought in the ranks. A desperate struggle led by the fearless Coehorn took place on the bridge; men were flung into the surging waters below, while the Austrian artillerymen, perhaps not knowing that many Austrians were on the frail structure, fired at the combatants on the bridge with disastrous results to their own side. To make matters worse several ammunition waggons blew up. It was a repetition of the scene on the Bridge of Lodi, only the carnage was more terrible. Once across, the castle became the next objective of the French, but it was not captured until many a gallant soldier had lost his life in a hand-to-hand struggle in the town below. Hitherto only a comparatively small number of Masséna’s troops had maintained the fight, but the Marshal now hurried fresh men across the bridge to support those engaged with the enemy. Gradually the men fought their way to the castle, and Mr Petre tells us that of one regiment which appeared before it, Colonel Pouget, who commanded, alone escaped without a wound.

“The entrance to the castle,” Mr Petre writes, “was by a vaulted archway open at the outer end, but closed by a strong wooden gate at the inner end. Above was a window, closely barred with iron and with loopholes on either side. From all of these there poured a heavy fire, especially from the grated window. The losses of the besiegers, as they stood and returned the fire from the exposed space between the archway and the mouth of the hollow road, were fearful. Men crowded up to take part in the fight, which was directed by Pouget from the angle of the archway, whence he could both see his own men and the grated window. The French infantry fired as quickly as they could; some even used the dead bodies of their comrades to raise them more on to a level with the window. Then Pouget sent for a well-known sportsman, Lieutenant Guyot, who, taking post within five yards of the window, poured in shots as fast as loaded muskets could be handed to him by the soldiers. Other picked marksmen joined him, and, at last, the Austrian fire began to fail. Sappers had now arrived and were at work breaking in the thick gate.

“In the enthusiasm of the fight Colonel Baudinot and Sub-Lieutenant Gérard of the 2nd battalion had managed to get forward, though most of their battalion was blocked in the narrow road behind. These two intrepid men, followed by a few others as brave as themselves, managed to find a way by the cellar ventilators, whence they got into the castle. Between Gérard and a grenadier of the garrison, who entered a room on the first floor simultaneously, there was a desperate encounter, which was not interfered with by the entrance of a third visitor in the shape of an Austrian round shot. Just at this moment the gate was broken in, and the garrison, including, presumably, Gérard’s grenadier, very soon surrendered as prisoners of war.”

Surely no more thrilling adventure than this is to be found in any story book? And yet it is but one of many that might be related of this campaign alone, could this volume be extended beyond the present limits.

But the storming of the castle of Ebelsberg was not yet over. The burning town had been cleared of the Imperialists, who were now pouring a veritable hail of shot on the besiegers from the surrounding heights, and their situation was perilous in the extreme, cut off as they were from their friends and surrounded only by their foes. Why the Austrians should have begun to retreat when such an opportunity was offered them to annihilate the enemy is beyond comprehension. Such was the case, and they hastened towards Enns, leaving two thousand killed and wounded, and over that number of prisoners. The French also lost very heavily. Late in the afternoon Napoleon came up, and in company with Savary, entered the town. He was by no means pleased with the terrible sights which met him on all sides, and bitterly lamented the heavy losses which his troops had suffered. Savary states that the Emperor remarked: “It were well if all promoters of wars could behold such an appalling picture. They would then discover how much evil humanity has to suffer from their projects.” If he did thus speak, it shows how blinded he had become by his own egotism; for Napoleon had certainly forced the war on unhappy Austria, now sorely discomfited by the turn events had taken.

CHAPTER XXV
The Austrian Campaign—continued (1809)

On the 10th May 1809, the French were before Vienna, and preparations were made for a vigorous attack. Late in the evening of the 11th the Emperor’s artillerymen began to hurl shells into the city, which was but ill-defended by Archduke Maximilian, who thought too much of his own skin to be of any considerable service, and speedily retired with his troops from the capital. Within forty-eight hours of the first shot being fired many of the French troops were in Vienna, the Emperor taking up his quarters in the palace of Schönbrünn near by.

Here he issued a decree annexing Rome, to which Pius VII. retorted with a Bull of excommunication. Napoleon, always an admirer of Charlemagne, referred to that monarch as “our august predecessor.” He had already hinted that the Pope should be no more than Bishop of Rome, as was the case under the rule of the founder of the Empire of the West. Several weeks later the Holy Father was escorted from the Quirinal to Avignon, and thence to Savona, in which quiet retreat the Emperor hoped he would come to his senses, in other words, to Napoleon’s way of thinking. This is exactly what the aged and determined Pontiff did not do, however. He preferred to remain virtually a prisoner and to pray for the recovery of his temporal kingdom rather than to submit to the dictatorship of the Emperor. The latter did not see fit to relent until 1814, the Pope then being at Fontainebleau. He offered to restore a portion of his states, but Pius VII. refused to discuss any terms except from Rome, to which city he returned on the Emperor’s abdication.