“‘Anything you please,’ he replied; ‘I have nothing to refuse you.’”
In this abrupt but characteristic way Macdonald was created a Marshal—a well-merited distinction also conferred on Oudinot and Marmont for their services in this campaign. Napoleon’s opening remark as to friendship referred to the five years of disgrace which the general had suffered by being unjustly implicated in the affairs of Moreau, a disfavour now to fall on Bernadotte, whose corps had behaved ill at Wagram and was dissolved. Thus almost at the same time as he gained a friend the Emperor made an enemy. It is interesting to note that Macdonald’s father was a Scotsman who fought for the Pretender and his mother a Frenchwoman, and that he was born at Sedan.
Napoleon, usually the most active in following up a victory, did not actively pursue the Austrians after the battle of Wagram for the all-sufficient reason that his troops were worn-out with fatigue. If you want to know and see and feel what a battle-field is like, glance through the sombre pages of Carlyle’s “Sartor Resartus” until you come to his description of that of Wagram. Here is the passage, and it is one of the most vivid in literature: “The greensward,” says the philosopher, “is torn-up and trampled-down; man’s fond care of it, his fruit-trees, hedge-row, and pleasant dwellings, blown-away with gunpowder; and the kind seedfield lies a desolate, hideous place of Skulls.” There were two days of hard fighting at Znaym on the 10th and 11th July, in which Masséna and Marmont took part, Napoleon not coming up until the morning of the second day. On the 12th an armistice was arranged.
Brief notice must be taken of the course of the war in other parts of Europe. The formidable Walcheren Expedition, so called because of its disembarkation on the island of that name, was undertaken by Great Britain as a diversion against the French. The idea had been mooted and shelved three years before, to be revived when Austria pressed the British Government to send troops to Northern Germany in the hope of fostering insurrection there. The Duke of Portland’s government, prompted by Lord Castlereagh, thought that Antwerp would be a more desirable objective. Instead of the troops pushing on immediately to that city, Flushing must needs be first besieged and bombarded. This detour lost much precious time, which was used to good advantage by Bernadotte and King Louis in placing the city in a state of defence.
The commanders of the English naval and military forces—Sir Richard Strachan and Lord Chatham respectively—now engaged in unseemly wrangling as to further movements, while meantime many of the soldiers fell victims to malarial fever. Eventually the army sailed for home, after an immense expenditure of blood and treasure, thousands of men dying and the cost amounting to many millions of pounds sterling. The expedition was for long the talk of the British people, the affair being epitomised in a witty couplet which aptly summed up the situation:—
Lord Chatham, with his sword undrawn,
Stood waiting for Sir Richard Strachan;
Sir Richard, longing to be at ’em,
Stood waiting for the Earl of Chatham.
In Spain things were going from bad to worse for Great Britain, and an expedition against Naples, commanded by Sir John Stewart, was eventually obliged to withdraw after some early successes. England felt the heavy hand of Napoleon very severely in the dark days of 1809.
We have noted that Archduke Ferdinand had troops to the number of 35,400 in Poland called the Army of Galicia. He was faced by Prince Galitzin and Prince Poniatovski, who had nearly 60,000 men, including Russians, Poles, and Saxons, under their command. Warsaw was secured by the Austrians after the battle of Raszyn, but following an attack on Thorn the Archduke was compelled to retreat, hostilities in Poland being terminated by the armistice of Znaym.
In Tyrol the peasant war was marked by many exciting events. The inhabitants of this picturesque land of forests and mountains were intensely patriotic and hated the Bavarians, under whose domination they had passed after Austerlitz, with an exceedingly bitter hatred. They felt that now was the time for revenge, for showing that the country was at heart still loyal to the Emperor Francis, descendant of a long line of monarchs who had exercised their feudal rights for over four centuries. A section of Archduke John’s army, amounting to some 10,000 men under General Chasteler, was accordingly sent to aid the ardent nationalists, who appointed their own leaders, the most celebrated of whom was Andreas Hofer, an innkeeper and cattle-dealer of considerable substance. A signal was agreed upon; when sawdust was seen floating on the waters of the Inn the people of the villages through which the river flowed were to understand that a general rising was expected of them. There was no fear that the news would not reach outlying districts. The people did not fail their leaders, and Innsbruck, the capital of the province, then in the hands of the Bavarians, was attacked, and did not long resist the gallantry of the Tyrolese. Other garrisons met a similar fate, and in less than a week but one fortress still held out in Northern Tyrol, so well had the rugged fellows performed their self-appointed task. Unhappily for the intrepid patriots—Napoleon with his usual partiality for misrepresentation called their leaders “brigands”—disasters succeeded their early victories, and Innsbruck was held for but six weeks before Lefebvre put himself in possession. Again fortune smiled on the Tyrolese. Wrede, who commanded the Bavarians, unduly weakened his forces by sending various regiments to join Napoleon. Taking advantage of their knowledge of this fact, 20,000 peasants presented themselves before the capital and regained it. Two more battles were waged outside the walls of Innsbruck, and innumerable skirmishes took place with the large army which the Emperor now poured into Tyrol before the flames were finally extinguished in December 1809. It is safe to say that the ashes would have continued to smoulder much longer had not Hofer been the victim of treachery. He was betrayed to the enemy by an ungrateful priest, and, after trial, executed on the 21st February 1810. Many of his colleagues availed themselves of an amnesty granted by Prince Eugène, but both Hofer and Peter Mayer preferred to fight to the end. The Emperor of Austria, grateful for the services rendered to him by the former innkeeper, provided the hero’s widow with a handsome pension and ennobled his son.