Free Austerlitz: Napoleon and the Eagles of Europe by Ian Castle Page A

baggage and make ready to march on, utilising the carts to transport detachments in relays and reassigning his fittest horses to pull the infantry ammunition carts. The artillery teams could not maintain this accelerated rate, so in order to preserve their battlefield effectiveness, they were allowed to continue at their own pace. Although conscious of the need for speed, Kutuzov insisted on maintaining one day’s rest for every four spent marching, to prevent exhaustion totally destroying his army. As a result of these changes his progress dramatically increased, but despite his caution, cohesion broke down as more and more men struggled to keep up the relentless pace. This endless tramp along bad roads in chilling rain destroyed the soldiers’ shoes, and reduced to marching barefoot, the men suffered greatly. Any unable to keep up were left to come on as best they could.
    Kutuzov himself took a detour via Vienna before arriving in Braunau on 9 October. The first column arrived three days later, ahead of schedule, completing the march of 330 miles from Teschen in twenty days. Allowing for three days’ rest, these men progressed at the tremendous pace of almost 19 miles a day. However, another two weeks would pass before the last of Kutusov’s five columns struggled in. By then, momentous events elsewhere had made their prodigious efforts worthless.
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    * Kutuzov to Alexander, prior to the commencement of the 1805 campaign.

Chapter 5
    To the Danube and the Rhine
    ‘Soldiers, we will have forced marches to make,
fatigues and deprivations of all kinds to endure
…we will not rest until we have planted our
eagles in the territories of our enemies!’ *
    As their Russian allies gradually began to close the great distance between the two armies destined to serve together in Germany, the Austrian army made its final arrangements for the campaign. On 29 August, at Hetzendorf, on the outskirts of Vienna, the senior Austrian commanders met to thrash out the plan of campaign. It was the first in a series of meetings, but by the time they reached a conclusion on 5 September, Napoleon’s army was already nine days into its march for the Rhine.
    At the first of these meetings Archduke Charles presented his ‘General Principles’ of the campaign. He would lead the main army in Italy, for he was convinced that the greatest threat to Austria lay along her Italian border with France. In March 1804 he wrote of this threat to the empire, posed by French forces so close to Austrian lands. He stressed: ‘It seems quite indisputable that the bulk of our forces should be allotted to the Italian theatre of operations’ and added, ‘Hence it is on the Adige that we must expect the first and principal operations, and it is there that the Austrian Armies should assume the offensive.’ 1 Therefore, Charles insisted the army on the Danube hold a position on the Inn river, until the Russians arrived.
    However, this was in direct opposition to Mack’s view, which demanded an Austrian advance into Bavaria in early September, in order to gain time to absorb the Bavarian army. Mack, who had completely won over the kaiser by this time, also recommended that Francis should assume his role as commander-in-chief with himself as quartermaster general (chief of staff).This would give Mack authority to communicate directly with the chiefs of staff allocated to the armies in Italy, Tirol and on the Danube.
    Archduke Ferdinand, named as commander of the army on the Danube, expressed concern that according to his calculations, the French could have 150,000 men at Munich before the Russians reached the Inn. He therefore proposed that only an army of observation of 30,000 to 40,000 men should advance into Bavaria, falling back if pressed by the French. This far-sighted appraisal of the young archduke’s gained the support of the kaiser, as well as Charles and his chief of staff, Zach. But Mack was having none of it and launched into a