“It was a brilliant success for Napoleon, who demonstrated maneuver qualities unmatched before.”
By Sylvain Batut
IN TERMS OF Napoleonic history, Oct 14 is a major anniversary.
On that day in 1806, Napoleon beat a Prussian army at the Battle of Jena, while his marshal Davout had a decisive victory against other Prussians at the Battle of Auerstaedt.
Few realize that exactly a year prior, during his infamous Danube Campaign of 1805, Napoleon’s Grande Armée won another important victory at the Battle of Elchingen. This victory sealed the fate of the Austrian army under General Mack (aka Karl Freiherr Mack von Leiberich), paving the way for another brilliant and decisive masterpiece for the French Emperor.
In April 1805, England faced invasion as Napoleon massed 180,000 soldiers in northern France. While Bonaparte awaited a naval victory that would allow him and his army to cross the Channel, British Prime Minister William Pitt convinced Austria and Russia to join the fight against Napoleon, producing the War of the Third Coalition.
An attack by the combined Austrian and Russian forces was meant to catch the French, whose army was massed in the north of France, by surprise. The staff of the Grande Armée however had anticipated this attack from Central Europe; Marshal Louis-Alexandre Berthier, chief of staff, had received reports from spies that the British were pushing their allies in the war, and had therefore prepared plans to quickly respond to the coalition powers.
Using Berthier’s plans, Napoleon designed a maneuver to split the allied armies. Napoleon dictated orders to his aide Daru for six hours straight, and the army started to move. Joined by other troops, making it a force of 227,000 men, the seven corps of the Grande Armée were to cross the Rhine river and turn to the south, and neutralize the Austrian army of General Mack in Bavaria, which at that time was an ally of France. Prince Ferdinand and his 70,000 men had to be out of fight prior to the arrival of the Russians forces, which took time to be assembled and marched off to meet with the Austrians. As many as 40,000 of Ferdinand’s best troops were placed under the command of General Mack, with the task to stop any French movement from the west.
The move around Mack’s Army was accomplished at a pace unmatched before. Starting to leave France on Aug. 22, the seven corps of the Grande Armée had crossed the Rhine on Sept. 26. They pushed further east and turned south to put themselves between Augsburg and Ingolstadt.
This turning movement was the toughest part of the plan, as it exposed the left flank, furthest to the east, to an eventual Russian attack. Through effective reconnaissance, the French minimized the risks, and practiced efficient deception south of Stuttgart. This left Mack secure in his illusion that the main French force was coming straight from the west, instead of the north.
Mack, convinced that the main force was approaching from the Black Forrest, decided to wait in Ulm, an advanced position for the Austrian army. While he deployed his troops, the Grande Armée pushed southeast, and crossed the Danube on Oct. 7. Mack understood that he was encircled, while more French soldiers kept marching towards his then isolated encampment.
In an effort to open a way East toward Augsburg, where Mack hoped to escape and meet the rest of the Austrian forces, one of his division attempted to fight the French at Wertingen on Oct. 8, but was defeated by Murat and his troops. The Austrians fought again on Oct. 11 at Haslach, north of Ulm, but their forces failed to disband the division of Dupont.
Napoleon realized he had sent too many troops to the south of Ulm leaving Mack a northern escape route. Bonaparte reacted quickly, and ordered Marshal Ney and his Sixth Corps to move north of the Danube, to close the last way out for Mack’s army.
This move was intended to finish the encircling maneuver of the French army around the Austrians.
On Oct. 14, Ney was to have his corps cross the bridge of Elchingen towards the north with 24,500 men, and attack the Austrian positions around a nearby abbey. The wooden bridge was greatly damaged, and the French engineers had to work under fire to rebuild it. Once Ney’s corps had crossed the river, his men pushed through the woods into the fields east of the abbey, where the main Austrian force was waiting for them.
The Austrians were trying to keep the French away of the road to Augsburg, which was further north. This road was the only exit left for Mack’s forces; Ney’s job was to strike fast and cut off the enemy’s retreat. Despite rushing uphill under heavy fire, the French forces kept up the assault, and beat back counterattacks from the Austrian cavalry by adopting ‘L’ formations in their lines of fire.
Solidly entrenched behind the walls of the abbey courtyard, the Austrians kept up their fire. French general Seroux, anticipating the toughness of the fight that was to come, ordered artillery brought forward to maximize his firepower. He used the cannons to pierce a whole in the walls, allowing the French to overwhelm the strong Austrian position near the abbey.
The what was left of the Austrian centre, located between Ober-Elchingen and Unter-Elchingen, were then swept by another French attack. At this point, the last divisions of Ney’s corps – under Mahler – crossed the bridge providing the marshal fresh reserves. They’d not be needed; French dragoons charged the last Austrian positions, concluding a decisive hard-fought victory for the Napoleon’s Grande Armée.
At the tactical level, the Battle of Elchingen was revealing. Not only had the French shown bravery in the face of the enemy, with Ney and his generals leading from the front under heavy fire, but they had also proved able to take the initiative when needed, as demonstrated by their engineers or their artillery. This gallant success came after some recent notable failures for the Grande Armée, namely its intelligence’s inability to foresee an Austrian counterattack against Dupont at Haslach.
At the operational level, the victory at Elchingen earned by Ney’s Sixth Corps was the final nail in Mack’s army’s coffin. Mack had to surrender his 27,000 men and 70 cannons on Oct. 19, when he understood that his troops could not fight any way out of Ulm in the face of the 200,000 French soldiers.
Some 16,000 remaining forces tried to escape, but were eventually caught by Murat’s cavalry and forced to surrender. It was a brilliant success for Napoleon, who demonstrated maneuver qualities unmatched before. The fast pace of the Grande Armée had been its best weapon, as described by a saying among French troops that “the emperor fought with their legs,” instead of their rifles.
Indeed, despite small engagements at battles like Wertingen, Haslach and Elchingen, most of his Grande Armée remained untouched, while the main Austrian force was out of fight. His army was ready for another decisive battle, confident in its capacities, and eager to win against a Russian enemy that was doubting in the face of these early successes. Moving very swiftly eastward and placing itself between the Austrians and their capitals, Napoleon and his army forced Mack to the surrender, and prepared his biggest victory to come a few weeks later at Austerlitz.
Sylvain Batut is a military history writer with a master’s degree in journalism from Temple University in Philadelphia. You can follow him on Twitter at @sylvain31000
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