Napoleon’s regimental Eagles made their début on the battlefield in the Wagram campaign of 1809, when Austria challenged Napoleon to a second trial of strength in her premature attempt to achieve the liberation of Germany. The gallant deeds of the regiments that fought round the Eagles in that war are commemorated on the standards of the French Army to-day by the legend “Wagram, 1809,” a name and date that stand as the comprehensive memento of a conflict that lasted four months, and included no fewer than ten fiercely fought battles. They are superabundant as a fact; it would almost need a book by itself to tell the full story. It must suffice therefore to take here only these, picked out at random, as typical of the rest.
This is the achievement that “Wagram, 1809,” inscribed in golden letters on the silken tricolor standard of the present-day 65th of the Line, serves to recall.
Napoleon’s 65th was one of the regiments of Marshal Davout’s corps at Ratisbon, where Davout had been stationed on the eve of the outbreak of the war. He was hastily recalled on the Austrians opening hostilities and advancing in greatly superior force. Davout fell back at once, leaving behind him the 65th to hold the very important bridge over the Danube at Ratisbon for forty-eight hours, until the bulk of his corps had gained a sufficient start on their way.
The 65th had not long to wait for the enemy. Within twelve hours of the marshal’s retirement the Austrians swooped down on Ratisbon to seize the bridge. Two of their army corps led the advance. One took possession of the city, sending troops forward to secure the bridge. Part of the other crossed the Danube in the neighbourhood of the city in boats, in order to cut off and capture the French troops left behind. It was expected that in the presence of so overpowering an enemy the single French regiment holding the bridge would not venture to make a serious defence. The Austrians did not know the 65th.
To oppose the first comers three battalions of the 65th barricaded and loopholed the houses nearest the bridge on that side. The remaining battalion held a fortified outwork, or bridge-head, across the river.
For a whole day the battalions in the city held the Austrians at bay, resisting desperately in the streets and from house to house. Four hundred Austrian prisoners, together with an Austrian regimental standard and three other flags, testified to the way they did their duty. The battalion holding the bridge-head on the farther side of the river made meanwhile a no less stubborn resistance and kept the enemy off until nightfall. Then, however, it was found that their ammunition was exhausted. The three battalions fighting the city were by that time in a no less desperate plight. They on their side had been forced back to their last defences among the houses immediately surrounding the approach to the bridge. Still, though, they kept up a fierce resistance, at the last using cartridges taken from the cartouche-boxes of the Austrian prisoners and their own dead and wounded comrades. They held out until further defence of the bridge was impossible, until indeed further resistance at all was hopeless.
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.
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:
“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.
Three other Eagles, less fortunate, are now in the Austrian Army Museum at Vienna; those of the 35th of the Line and of the 95th and 106th. The Eagle of the 35th was taken on the Italian frontier near Lake Garda, in a surprise attack at daybreak on the camp of the Viceroy, Eugène Beauharnais, by the troops of the Archduke John. The other two fell into Austrian hands on the night of the opening attack at Wagram, victims of a panic that suddenly seized one of the French columns. It had led the attack on the centre of the Austrian position with brilliant success.
Two thousand prisoners and five standards had been taken, and the French were advancing exultantly, when the Austrians counter-attacked with fresh troops, headed by the Archduke Charles in person. The French resisted stubbornly, and at first successfully. They held their own until, in the midst of furious hand-to-hand fighting, they were suddenly charged by cavalry. It was late evening, and in the gathering dusk a sudden panic seized a regiment on the flank. The panic spread instantly to the whole of the attacking column. All order was lost forthwith. The soldiers gave way in confusion, broke up, and went racing back headlong, a mob of fugitives, down the steep ascent that a few minutes before they had so gallantly won. As they went back in a tumultuous rush, fresh French troops, coming up to their support, “in the darkness mistook the retreating host for enemies and fired upon it; they, in their turn, were overthrown by the torrent of fugitives.” The Austrian prisoners taken in the advance escaped, the captured Austrian standards were recaptured, and two Eagles disappeared in the dark amid the turmoil. Those are the two now at Vienna.
Fortunately for Napoleon the Austrian leaders did not realise the smashing nature of the blow they had dealt. The fate of Napoleon’s Empire otherwise might have been decided on that night. Unaware that the panic had “spread an indescribable alarm through the French centre as far as the tent of the Emperor, they stopped the advance, sounded the recall, and fell back to their original positions.”
Of the Eagle-bearers of four regiments at Aspern, the 2nd, 16th, 37th, and 67th of the Line, not one came through the day alive, but the Eagles were saved. They were the four regiments that took the village of Aspern and held it all day and till after dark—12,000 men against 80,000 enemies. The village was the all-important key of the battlefield. Its defence was of supreme moment, for only part of Napoleon’s army had been able to get across the Danube as yet, the main bridge of boats having been broken down and swept away.
They had seized Aspern at the outset, but had been forced to fall back before an Austrian counter-attack, returning after that to recapture it, and hold it until the end.
Marshal Masséna led the onset that retook the village. “The Austrians,” describes a French officer, “had entered Aspern, and it was absolutely necessary to dislodge them. Masséna therefore, who had had all his horses killed, marched on foot with drawn sword at the head of the Grenadiers of the Molitor division, forced his way into the village, crowded as it was with Austrians, drove them out, and pursued them for some twelve or fourteen yards beyond the houses. But here the French troops found themselves face to face with the strong force under Hiller, Bellegarde, and Hohenzollern, advancing rapidly in their direction. It was hopeless for the division to attempt to engage such superior numbers in the open plain, so Masséna recalled the pursuers, and ordered them to hold Aspern. The enemy, ashamed apparently of this first defeat, returned to the charge with 80,000 men and more than a hundred pieces of cannon, which were soon pointed on the village.”
It was impossible to stop the onrush of the Austrians. In spite of every effort of Masséna, who with his artillery “opened fire upon the densely packed masses of men, every shot working terrible havoc amongst them,” they swarmed forward to the outskirts of the village. A life-and-death struggle in defence began. “In a very few minutes the village was completely surrounded by troops; and hidden from view in the dense clouds of smoke from the cannon, the musketry, and the fires which at once broke out, the combatants, almost suffocated by the smoke, crossed bayonets without being able to see each other; but neither side gave way a step, and for more than an hour the terrible attack and desperate defence went on amongst the ruins of the burning houses.”
It was during the Austrian opening attack on the outskirts of Aspern that at one point a French regiment—the number of the regiment is not given in any account—was forced apart from the rest, and driven back in disorder beyond the village. Its colonel was killed, and, though the Eagle was kept from falling into the enemy’s hands, the regiment fell back in confusion. Napoleon witnessed the check and galloped to intercept the troops as they were retreating. Riding into the midst of the fugitives, he personally rallied them, and then called angrily for the colonel. There was no answer from any one, and in high anger Napoleon again called for the colonel. Then somebody made the reply that the colonel was dead. “I know that!” answered Napoleon sharply. “I asked where he was!” “We left him in the village.” “What! you left your colonel’s body in the hands of the enemy? Go back instantly, find it, and remember that a good regiment should always be able to produce both its Colonel and its Eagle!” Napoleon’s stinging rebuke did its work. The men at once re-formed and turned back. Charging forward with a rush, they forced their way through to where the colonel had fallen and recovered the body. Then they joined in with the other defenders at the village, and did their duty to the end. The colonel’s body was brought back and laid before Napoleon next morning.
The fearful contest in Aspern went on until four in the afternoon, by which time the Austrians had succeeded in taking half the village. They could not, however, get beyond that. “Masséna still held the church and cemetery, and was struggling to regain what he had lost. Five times in less than three hours he took and retook the cemetery, the church, and the village, without being able to call to his aid the Legrand division, which he was obliged to hold in reserve to cover Aspern on the right and keep the enemy from getting in on that side. Throughout this awful struggle Masséna stood beneath the great elms on the green opposite the church, calmly indifferent to the fall of the branches brought down upon his head by the showers of grape-shot and bullets, keenly alive to all that was going on, his look and voice, stern as the quos ego of Virgil’s angry Neptune, inspiring all who surrounded him with irresistible strength.”
Even when the sun went down “the struggle was far from being over, and the awful battle was still raging in the streets and behind the walls of the village of Aspern. The enemy, irritated at the stubborn resistance of so small a body of troops, redoubled their efforts to dislodge them before nightfall, and went on fighting by the light of the conflagrations alone. The history of our wars relates no more thrilling incident than this long and obstinate struggle, in which our troops, disheartened by the ever-fresh difficulties with which they had to contend, worn out by fatigue, and horrified by the carnage round them, were kept at their posts by the example and exhortations of Masséna and his officers alone. General Molitor had lost some half of his men, and the enemy were hurrying up from every side. The struggle was maintained under these terrible conditions until eleven o’clock, when we remained masters of Aspern and of the whole line between it and Essling.”
Five regiments of the French Army of to-day commemorate a splendid Eagle-incident in the name “Wagram, 1809,” on their colours; the final charge of Macdonald’s column which saved and decided the battle for Napoleon, besides gaining a marshal’s bâton for the Scottish officer who achieved the feat. That was on the final battlefield of Wagram itself, the outcome of which tremendous encounter settled the fate of the war. It was the culminating event of the battle. The crisis was at hand for both armies when the order was given to Macdonald to go forward. On the Austrian side the powerful and fresh corps of the Archduke John was rapidly nearing the scene, and the fortune of the day yet wavered in the balance. Napoleon, as his last hope and final effort to break the stubborn Austrian array of the Archduke Charles’ host which still confronted him, defiant still after ten hours of charges and counter-charges, holding out tenaciously in a strong position, massed his reserves and sent them at the centre of the Austrians, to press forward in a vast column of closely formed battalions. They went at the enemy with all the daring of a forlorn hope.
“Moving steadily forward through the wreck of guns, the dead, and the dying, this undaunted column, preceded by its terrific battery incessantly firing, pushed on half a league beyond the front at other points of the enemy’s line. In proportion as it advanced, however, it became enveloped in fire; the guns were gradually dismounted or silenced, and the infantry emerged through their wreck to the front. The Austrians drew off their front line upon their second, and both, falling back, formed a sort of wall on each side of the French column, from whence issued a dreadful fire of grape and musketry on either flank of the assailants. Still Macdonald pushed on with unconquerable resolution: in the midst of a frightful storm of bullets his ranks were unshaken; the destiny of Europe was in his hands, and he was worthy of the mission. The loss he experienced, however, was enormous; at every step huge chasms were made in his ranks, whole files were struck down by cannon-shot, and at length his eight dense battalions were reduced to 1,500 men. Isolated in the midst of enemies, this band of heroes was compelled to halt. The Empire rocked to its foundations: it was the rout of a similar body of the Guard at Waterloo that hurled Napoleon to the rock of St. Helena.”
The five regiments which formed the spear-point of the attack had paraded that morning 6,000 strong. They numbered now, the survivors, less than 300. They were at the extreme point of the advance, but were held fast and unable to go farther. The enemy were on every side of them, for in the last moments they had pressed on beyond touch of the troops that were following next. The Austrians saw their chance to charge them and annihilate them before the approach of French supports to the main column could get near. But General Broussier, the Brigadier in command of the leading troops, knew his work and his men. As they halted he rapidly rallied the fragments of the nearest regiments and formed them in a single square. They drew up under the feu d’enfer of cannon and musketry, three deep in front, with, in the centre, held up on high, the five Eagles of the regiments; so as not to weaken the front, the firing line, “the Eagles were held up only by men who had been wounded.” Broussier marked the massing of the Eagles in the midst; and, as the firing round them for one moment seemed to lull, raising his voice, he called out for all to hear: “Soldiers, swear to die here to the last man round your Eagles!” “Jurez moi, soldats, de mourir tous, jusqu’au dernier, autour de vos Aigles!” were the Brigadier’s words. But there was fortunately no need for all to die. At that moment reinforcing troops came up, with the Young Guard at their head. The column, on that, moved forward again with a steady front, “and the Archduke, despairing now of maintaining his position, when assailed at the crisis of the day by such a formidable accession of force in the now broken part of his line, gave directions for a general retreat.” The Eagles had done their part and the battle of Wagram was won.