Austerlitz: Napoleon and the Eagles of Europe (18 page)

Mack put on a brave face, maintaining his conviction that the position remained strong and advocated its continued defence until the Russians intervened. His senior officers thought otherwise and demanded he attempt to break out towards Tirol. Mack exploded with rage. Archduke Ferdinand had seen enough. Convinced that French forces would soon encircle the city and any chance of escape would evaporate, he represented to Mack that his capture, as a member of the imperial Habsburg family, would be intolerable. Mack attempted to assure him that there was no danger of that happening and he reiterated his belief that the French would commence their retreat to France. Ferdinand was no longer prepared to put Mack’s theories to the test, and with FML Schwarzenberg and FZM Kolowrat, prepared to abandon Ulm that night and break out with 2,000 cavalry and two battalions of grenadiers.
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With his plans complete, Ferdinand offered Mack the chance to ride out with them. He refused and also prevented a number of officers who wished to accompany Ferdinand from leaving on the grounds that they were essential if he was to maintain a defence of the city. At midnight, Ferdinand, Kolowrat, Schwarzenberg and their men departed, with the intention of locating and uniting with Werneck’s column. Then Ferdinand hoped to find Kienmayer and link up with the Russians. Mack was appalled.

On the morning of 15 October the French army began closing in on Ulm. Ney’s VI Corps marched towards the Michelsberg and supported by
detachments from Lannes’ V Corps, drove the demoralised defenders out of the incomplete defences and back on the city. Outside the gates they made a stand and succeeded in driving the French back, but they were in a bad position. The French artillery outranged those Austrian guns positioned within the defences (their heavy guns away on the road with Werneck), and threatened a destructive bombardment. By evening, Ney’s troops took up the recently vacated positions on the Michelsberg, while the demoralised Austrians crowded into the city.

A citizen of Ulm described the desperate conditions apparent in the congested streets:

‘Ever more the roads filled with the fleeing and wounded; carts and wagons, emaciated horses, abandoned cannons hindered communications. Hundreds of half-starving soldiers were in every public place. The despondency among the troops took over in such a way that it bordered on resignation and the Austrian soldier represented the starkest picture of human misery.

‘They stood in the rain and snow for two or three days in torn and damaged clothes, many without shoes … While for the most part the officers wandered about the taverns, the soldiers begged for bread with the citizens. In the roads dead horses lay … The condition of the wounded and sick was even more pitiful; more than 4,000 men were in the hospitals, of which about fifteen to twenty died daily.’
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With the city surrounded, Maréchal Ney called on Mack to surrender. Despite the suffering all around him, Mack firmly refused. So adamant was he that the city could still defend itself against a French assault that he issued a proclamation forbidding anyone to even discuss the possibility of capitulation. However, he was alone. Nine of his rebellious senior officers objected and prepared a statement urging Mack to make terms with the French, claiming the shortage of food and ammunition made defence impossible. In the face of such constant opposition his determination finally began to dissolve and Mack allowed them to draw up a response to Ney, requesting that the army be allowed to march out of Ulm with all the honours of war back to the Lech. The document, signed by Riesch, Gyulai and Loudon ended with a dramatic flourish. If Ney refused their terms they vowed to defend the city until ‘buried in the ruins’. Mack did not add his signature before Generalmajor Moritz Liechtenstein delivered it to Ney in the early hours of 16 October.
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Having read the document, Ney forwarded it to Napoleon and awaited a response. It was not long in coming. The emperor categorically refused the request, insisting on the garrison’s status as prisoners of war. On receipt of this rejection the three officers immediately sent their courier back to Ney
informing him that as he did not accept their conditions they were prepared to entrust their fate to the chances of war. Ney’s final response informed that a truce would exist until noon, at which time, if the garrison did not surrender, an attack on the city would commence. With no more word coming from Ulm, Ney’s artillery opened a bombardment of the city at midday. A number of small fires broke out but these caused few problems. After a couple of hours the bombardment ceased and renewed discussions took place: but when these broke down it resumed again and continued for a few more hours. That night the garrison made hurried repairs to the city defences, while Napoleon’s aide, Général de Ségur, arrived and spent the night negotiating with Mack for an acceptable resolution to the situation.

During the night of 14–15 October, the now isolated FML Werneck received news of Riesch’s engagement at Elchingen and also learnt that the French were behind him at Albeck (Dupont’s division). As this detachment appeared to be unaware of his presence, he determined to attack them in the morning while the artillery and baggage continued on their journey. He split his corps into two, the first part under his own command marching straight towards Albeck, while a flanking group, commanded by FML Hohenzollern followed a roundabout route via Brenz and Langenau. Werneck reached Nerenstetten, about 5 miles north-east of Albeck at 3.30pm, but as his advance guard drove in the French outposts the sound of gunfire from Ulm reached his ears. With darkness approaching and the French now reinforced by a division of dragoons and no sign of his planned flank attack developing, Werneck decided to pull back and regroup. The orders he sent to recall Hohenzollern did not arrive.

The surprising news that a large body of Austrian troops was operating outside Ulm and presenting a threat to his communications forced Napoleon into action. While the main body of the army tightened its grip on Ulm, Murat received orders to attack any Austrian formations roaming north of the Danube. For this task he created an ad hoc cavalry force, joined en route by Dupont’s division and then by Oudinot’s Reserve Grenadiers. Setting out on the morning of 16 October, Murat discovered Hohenzollern’s command floundering in the mud near Langenau and swept them up before approaching Albeck.

Early that morning the confused Werneck marched back again towards Nerenstetten hoping to find Hohenzollern. Instead he found Murat. The French cavalry smashed into Werneck’s advance guard, and while the two sides clashed, Werneck received a message from Mack, written after Riesch’s defeat at Elchingen two days earlier, ordering him back to Ulm. Then, another note arrived, this time from Archduke Ferdinand. In it, Ferdinand explained the latest developments in Ulm and ordered Werneck to march towards Aalen, roughly 25 miles north of Nerenstetten, where he would join him. Clearly exposed, Werneck turned again, losing a great many prisoners as his advance guard became the rearguard, and attempted to keep the French at bay while he
moved clear with the main body. Ten miles from Nerenstetten, at Herbrechtingen on the Brenz, he hurriedly took up a defensive position on the high ground from where he rejected a summons to surrender. Murat attacked: but after a day of hurricane-like weather that washed away the repaired bridge at Elchingen, his exhausted men fell back in the face of a spirited defence. Undaunted, Murat attacked again after dark, at about 9.00pm, and following a confused struggle Werneck’s men abandoned the position, losing perhaps 2,000 men as prisoners to the French.

Whether or not Schulmeister influenced Werneck’s marching and countermarching is unrecorded, but sewing the seeds of doubt and confusion was his forte. That night, however, under cover of darkness, he slipped away from Werneck’s headquarters and reported directly to Murat. At around 1.00am on 17 October he handed over a report detailing the direction of the Austrian retreat and their planned rendezvous with Ferdinand at Aalen, as well as the location of the reserve artillery and baggage convoy.
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Schulmeister, his work done, departed for French headquarters at Elchingen.

Werneck struggled on in the morning, but just a few miles short of Aalen he received a second despatch from Archduke Ferdinand. Not for the first time it contained details of a change of plan. Now he was to march via Neresheim to Oettingen, where the two forces were to unite. Werneck’s men now embarked on their fifth day of marching backwards and forwards and they were at the limit of their endurance. The route to Neresheim took them on poor cross-country roads adding further to their misery. The dejected column staggered into Neresheim between 11.00am and 3.00pm and attempted to grab a little rest but within two hours Murat’s cavalry appeared, forcing the men on again. Unable to keep up the relentless pace, more and more men fell out, being quickly captured by their relentless pursuers. By the time he reached the flooded village of Trochtelfingen near Nördlingen, Werneck retained only about 2,000 formed men of the 9,000 or so that marched out of Ulm.
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His men sank down on the waterlogged ground to grab what rest they could.

In the evening, a French emissary approached Werneck and informed him that Hohenzollern’s force had surrendered the previous day and offered him surrender terms. Considering the condition of his men Werneck accepted and signed the agreement at about 11.00pm on 17 October. However, while negotiations were underway, most of the mounted officers and cavalry slipped away under cover of darkness and finally did rendezvous with Archduke Ferdinand at Oettingen.
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A brigade of dragoons completed the bag by rounding up the Austrian artillery and baggage at Bopfingen on the road between Aalen and Nördlingen. By then Schulmeister had already reported to Napoleon’s headquarters at Elchingen. Here, to the emperor’s delight, he was able to give a thorough briefing on the condition of the army in Ulm, the animosity existing amongst the senior generals, the false information
disseminated to Mack, and details of the composition of his command. The Austrian army lay naked and exposed before the emperor.

Napoleon’s aide, Général de Ségur, left Ulm early on the morning of 17 October and reported back to Napoleon on his progress. The terms were:

1. The garrison to be prisoners of war and removed to France; or if the Russian army appears on the Lech river near Rain during the course of the day (16 October), the garrison will be granted free passage back to Austria.
   
2. In either circumstance the officers will return to Austria on parole not to serve against France for the duration of the campaign.
   
3. Following the surrender, if preferred, three or four French divisions will remain static for five or six days around the city.
   

Mack would not accept the terms and communications flowed back and forth. Then, at 2.00pm, Napoleon’s chief of staff, Maréchal Berthier, arrived to finally settle matters. Mack negotiated an extension of eight days: if the Russians were not in force on the Lech by 25 October he would surrender. Berthier agreed, well aware that the Russians were still assembling east of the Inn. But in return, Mack astonishingly conceded to a request that, in the meantime, the French would be given access to one gate (the Neutor) of the city, granted permission to quarter a brigade within the city, and allowed free passage through it across the Danube. With this extraordinary decision to allow the French access to Ulm, what the outcome of a sudden Russian appearance would be does not appear to be clear.

At 9.00am on 18 October a brigade from Malher’s division of VI Corps arrived before Ulm and demanded access. The gates opened, allowing the Frenchmen to enter, and they immediately requisitioned a wide area of the city. The Austrian soldiers were nonplussed. Mack had issued an order forbidding any aggression against the French, yet here were their enemies, swaggering amongst them and forcibly ejecting them from their billets. An Austrian staff officer describing the feelings of the garrison wrote:

‘You had to be in Ulm to have an idea of the dreadful situation that surrounded us; it would be much too insulting, too painful, to give a detailed description of all the insults and abuse which we must now endure. Everywhere our soldiers mixed with the Frenchmen, and those who knew only too well their expected fate, looked with contempt on their officers … The French generals gallop through the streets without slackening and cover us in mud, they dispute our dwellings with us, steal our effects and during the night break into our stables by force, steal our horses and laugh at our objections …’
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Information from inside Ulm, and Schulmeister’s report, clearly indicated to Napoleon the poor situation of the Austrian army. Frustrated now by the delays he would incur in line with the agreement Berthier had signed the previous day, he decided to accelerate the process and called Mack to Elchingen that afternoon.

Mack arrived at Napoleon’s headquarters with a large number of attendants but without his senior officers and suffered the indignity of being kept waiting for two hours by the emperor. Finally, when he at last appeared, Napoleon pressed Mack on the question of why he had decided to defend such a poorly situated and fortified place as Ulm. Mack vehemently defended his decision, continuing to promote his belief in the strength of the position, but answering that circumstances dictated he must surrender.
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At that point Napoleon decided to acquaint Mack with the facts. He informed him of the surrender of Memmingen five days earlier; that the Russians had not yet crossed the Inn; and that 60,000 troops were ready to oppose them (Bernadotte, Davout and the Bavarians). Further, he added that Werneck’s corps surrendered on 17 October and on the 18 October Archduke Ferdinand was fleeing towards Bohemia with Murat in pursuit. The news hit Mack like a bombshell. It was clear now that there was no chance of relief before the deadline of 25 October. Mack was no longer the energetic, dominant figure that had marched confidently across Bavaria up to the banks of the Iller and beyond only six weeks earlier. He now showed the signs of a defeated man, worn down and driven to exhaustion by the constant battles with his own officers as well as the French. A few days earlier, an Austrian staff officer, Count Neipperg, described Mack as looking ‘pale, having a night-cap under his hat, wearing a blue frock coat, his arm tied in a scarf [the result of his wound at Jungingen], and supported by a servant’.