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318

A CURIOUS PANIC.

kept in reserve. The emperor's bivouac remained between Rahsdorf and Aderklaa.

Now, despite their absolute victory, ensued a curious panic among the French troops, which testifies to a manifest lack of discipline. Fire discipline they had in plenty, and they could march far and fast; but Napoleon's soldiers were never under the best control. The circumstances were these. The troops had begun to bivouac, when some small bodies of light horse. preceding the van of Archduke John's army came riding up, and a cry arose among the camp followers that the enemy was reaching the bridges. A general stampede among the trainmen, the wounded who could still walk and the stragglers took place, and for a while even the line was doubtful of its victory. But matters soon quieted, and as it happened, this particular panic had no further results. In his Memoirs, Marmont says: "Panic fears are a sad sign of the moral condition of an army. They have sometimes happened in the French army, but never in its good days. The army of Austerlitz and that of Jena showed no such example. Panic fears are a proof of a strong neglect of discipline, of a want of confidence and of a lack of pride in the military virtues." As a fact, so long as his men would march and fight, Napoleon cared for nothing else, and left the troops unbridled. They were allowed many personal excesses, to reconcile them to their hard work and frequent sufferings. Plunder, arson, rape, were every-day crimes which, despite flaring Orders of the Day, went unpunished. The French soldier had come to look on these as a right he possessed; and he was fast degenerating into a military machine, excellent in success, but by reason of this very looseness, of more questionable value in a grave disaster.

Rosenberg, on the extreme Austrian left, had retired to Wölkersdorf; the rest of his army Charles assembled at nightfall along the Brünn road and at the Bisamberg. He had

LOSSES AND PRISONERS.

319

given up the battlefield, but he had not been disastrously beaten, for his army was still in good organization and heart; and as Napoleon had not won an overwhelming victory and had suffered heavy losses himself, he was scarcely disposed to push on in pursuit that day, nor indeed to renew his attack,

one of which things he would certainly have done when in his old form. Both forces lay on their arms the night of July 6-7, close to each other, the emperor uncertain whether the Austrians would retreat towards Znaim via Korneuberg, or on Brünn via Wölkersdorf. By early morning of the 7th the latter seemed the more probable; though as a fact, Davout all but barred the way.

The Austrian loss had been nearly twenty-five thousand men, including twelve generals hors de combat; but they left few trophies except some dismounted guns. The French loss was not less. Each army took some seven thousand prisoners. Charles made ready to retire towards Znaim on the way to Bohemia; Rosenberg along the road to Moravia. The Emperor of Austria, who had been with Charles' army, made his way to Hungary.

Tactically, Charles had conducted the battle on an excellent plan of concentric attack, such as had succeeded so well at Essling; but he had thereby weakened his line, and had enabled Napoleon, by massing his forces, as from his convex position he could more readily do, to rupture his centre and to roll up his left wing. Charles had, however, a good right to expect his brother John to reinforce this wing in season, and thus enable him to hold Neusiedl, or certainly Wagram. His conduct of the battle had been excellent. Had John not been delayed at Presburg, the emperor's task, to say the least, would have been much harder.

To Cambacérès, from his bivouac, the emperor wrote: "I send you from the battlefield my page, La Riboisière, so that you shall be without dis

320

RECITAL OF THE BATTLE.

quiet, and that you may know in general the result of the battle of DeutschWagram. The Austrian army is in full rout and pursued in all directions. I am so tired that I do not write you more. Let it suffice that I tell you that everything marches according to my desires."

To General Clarke the emperor wrote, July 8, from Wölkersdorf: "The Bulletins will have told you the result of the days of Enzersdorf and of Wagram, memorable battles, in which all the forces of the Austrian empire have been destroyed. I have my headquarters in the house which was occupied by the wretched Francis II., who contented himself with watching the whole affair from the top of a tower" (belvidere) “four leagues from the battlefield. I estimate that the enemy fired upon us seven or eight hundred guns. As to me, I had also many, for I had five hundred and fifty pieces. I fired on them one hundred thousand balls or rounds of grape. The artillery of the Guard rendered me most eminent service, and as in my organization this artillery really forms the reserve of the artillery of the army, I believe that I will decide to increase it to one hundred and twenty pieces." Says the 25th Bulletin: "Such is the recital of the battle of Wagram, a decisive battle and one forever celebrated, where three or four hundred thousand men, twelve or fifteen hundred guns, fought for great interests on a battlefield studied, meditated, fortified by the enemy for several months. Ten flags, forty guns, twenty thousand prisoners . are the trophies of this victory. The battlefield is covered with dead. . . . Our loss has been considerable, it is valued at fifteen hundred killed and three or four thousand wounded." "A particular circumstance of this great battle is that the columns nearest to Vienna were not more than twelve hundred fathoms away. The enormous population of this capital covered the towers, the belfries, the roofs, the hillocks, to be witness of this great spectacle."

...

On July 9 Napoleon wrote Alexander: "Monsieur my Brother, I thank Your Imperial Majesty for your amiable attentions during these three months. I have waited to write you because I first wished to write you from Vienna. After that I was not willing to write you until I had chased the Austrian army from the left bank of the Danube. The obstacles that the enemy opposed to the construction of my bridges have obliged me to make them of piles; that retarded me until now. The battle of Wagram, of which Your Majesty's aide-de-camp, who was always on the battlefield, can render you an account, has realized my hopes. The Austrian army, cut off from Hungary, has retired on Bohemia. I am pursuing it."

CONCENTRATED GRAND-TACTICS.

321 The three lines of retreat open to Charles, from his first position back of the Russbach, were to his left on Hungary, where he could best defend the Austrian hereditary possessions; back of his centre on Moravia, whence he could reach Hungary, unless interrupted by a French advance up the March, along the chord of the arc he had to describe; and to his right on Bohemia, where Prague would furnish him a base rich in material, and near the allies in north Germany, who were rising in favor of Austria. For Napoleon it was best to cut Charles off from Hungary, as his power lay in controlling the Austrian capital and its resources; and in his plan of the battle of Wagram this idea had been uppermost. Frederick's battles were generally founded on a tactical plan, Napoleon's on a strategical plan. Frederick, never equal to the enemy in numbers, had to rely on grand-tactics to defeat him, and moreover, though always on the offensive, he was waging war to defend his kingdom, and needed not the broad strategic method to which Napoleon, who always waged wars of conquest, resorted. Frederick's difficulties were usually tactical. Napoleon, on the contrary, with his superior numbers, paid rare heed to these. He moved on the enemy from such an intelligently conceived direction as strategically to compromise him, and would not acknowledge that any minor logistical or tactical difficulties could arrest his blow when delivered. At Wagram Napoleon saw that to cut the enemy off from Hungary as well as prevent the junction of John, he should manœuvre to turn Charles' left flank. On the other hand, Charles doubted his ability to recover Vienna except by a victory; he would not risk the only army on which the Emperor Francis could depend; and therefore, looking to his means of retreat, and feeling that he was strong in Bohemia, he stood astride the roads to that state and to Moravia, and then not only reached out to John, but also strove to turn the

VOL. III.

322

THE KEY OF THE FIELD.

French left by way of Asparn in search of a tactical victory. He was thus too extended. As it happened, Napoleon's concentrated grand-tactics was correct. The tactical as well as strategic key of the field was Neusiedl; Charles relied on

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John to come up and hold it; to Napoleon it seemed essential to capture it; and his so doing before John arrived decided the battle.

Immediately after the battle the archduke had drawn all his forces except Rosenberg back to Korneuburg, on the Znaimroad. On the 7th Davout and Marmont, accompanied by headquarters and the Guard, were pushed out to Wölkersdorf, with the idea that the Austrians would retreat on Brünn ; Massena took post at Jedlersee to hold the road to Vienna,

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